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“Drop that gun, Baird! 







ORDER NO. 11 

A TALE OF THE BORDER 


CAROLINE ABBOT STANLEY 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

HARRY C. EDWARDS 



NEW YORK 
THE, CENTURY CO. 
1921 


( 



Copyright, 2904, b\) 
The Century Co 


3"! 0 

a 



TO 

MRS. JESSAMINE WALLACE, 
OF JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI, 
^ PARTICIPANT IN THESE SCENES, 
AND THE FAITHFUL FRIEND OF 
THREE GENERATIONS, 

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I The Man with the Single Aim 3 

II Miss Abby Ann Arrives 15 

III Weighed in the Balance and found Wanting 26 

IV A Stronghold of Orthodoxy 35 

V In the School-house 47 

VI Two AND Two ARE FIVE 63 

VII Miss Abby on Domestic Economy 71 

VIII A Spirited Maiden 79 

IX The Loom-house Academy 86 

X A Grown-up Man ” 96 

XI A Chapter of Border History 104 

XII A Pen-and-ink Sketch 117 

XIII Living Pictures in the Olden Time . . .122 

XIV Select Readings 13 1 

XV When Hearts are Young 137 

XVI In which Beverly Supposes a Case .... 147 

XVII The Barbecue 154 

XVIII A Memorable Campaign 166 

XIX A Working, Buzzing, Stinging Hive . . .173 

XX Tramp, Tramp, Tramp! ” 184 

XXI ‘‘Oh, Sister Phcebe!'' 192 

XXII Border Warfare Begins 200 

XXIII A Day of Sowing 206 

viii 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

XXIV "Trifles Light as Air” . . . . . . . .216 

XXV A Dark Night’s Ride . * 226 

XXVI David— 235 

XXVII —AND Jonathan 243 

XXVIII Fightings Without and Fears Within . .251 

XXIX The Perfect Love that Casteth out Fear 258 

XXX A Fearful School and an Apt Scholar . .265 

XXXI The Sack of Keswick 275 

XXXII Order No. 1/ 289 

XXXIII A "Dark-skinned White Lady” 296 

XXXIV The Certificate 302 

XXXV The Heir comes to His Own . . . . . 312 

XXXVI Mammy Visits the Provost-marshal . . .319 

XXXVII "A Nation Scattered and Peeled”. . . . 327 

XXXVIII Gordon takes the Helm 335 

XXXIX Forty Years Ago 345 

XL "The Old Order Changeth” 355 

XLi Confirmation Strong 365 

XLii The Fortunes of Love and War .... 374 

XLiii The Scent of a Honeysuckle 380 

XLiv Without Fear and Without Reproach . . 387 

XLV A Day in June 392 

XLVi The Dove’s Call 401 

XLVii A Chapter of Beginnings and Endings . . 406 

XLviii Her Wedding Day 412 

XLix Epilogue 418 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


‘‘ Drop that gun, Baird ! ” Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Of course you ’ll write to me, Sallie ? ” 64 

‘‘ They had been separated so long ” 224 

Leaving the old home 294 



I 


ORDER NO. 11 




} 


ORDER NO. II 


A TALE OF THE BORDER 


CHAPTER I 

THE MAN WITH THE SINGLE AIM 

I T was a September day on the western prairies of Mis- 
souri. The earth had risen from a fresh bath like a 
strong man rejoicing to run a race. There was no trace 
of the summer’s lassitude in field or flower, nor as yet a 
hint of failing powers in the forest beyond. 

A young man of twenty and a girl in the exuberant 
beauty of form and coloring that belongs to seventeen 
sat together out in the summer-house and talked the fleet- 
ing hours away. And how fast they went ! Gordon was 
going away soon— and the sun was almost down. They 
were very commonplace things they talked about; some- 
times the conversation was fragmentary and disjointed; 
it would hardly have passed for conversation at all if they 
had been held to the strict letter of the law, for often there 
were long intervals in which neither cared to talk. But 
they were never awkward pauses ; he was no stranger that 
must be entertained with ceaseless chatter. Sometimes 
the silences seemed the pleasantest part of their talk,— 
they were so instinct with communion. Yes, a very com- 
monplace conversation ; but to them, sparkling and deep- 
toned, for the coloring of seventeen and twenty was in it. 
They were speaking now of an expected guest. 


4 


ORDER NO. 11 


When is she coming? ’’ he asked. 

'' We don't know exactly. Father has gone to the office 
now to see if there is a letter. We think she will be here 
to-morrow. I hope she will— I 'm crazy to see her. And 
then she ought to have Sunday to rest. It is a long 
journey from Massachusetts to Missouri." 

And it was longer in 1859 than it is to-day. 

‘‘ She is from Boston, you say ? " 

'' From near there. My ! I dread it, as anxious as I 
am for her to come. I 'm afraid of anybody that knows 
so much ! " 

Virginia Trevilian gave a shrug to the pretty dimpled 
shoulders rising from the baby waist of pink lawn. 
'' Gordon, they say she can teach Greek and Latin! Just 
think of that 1 A woman 1 " 

Gordon Lay smiled. He had been in college three years 
now, and he was not so much in awe of Greek and Latin 
as he had once been. 

The girl gave a bubbling laugh that was good to hear, 
it was so spontaneous. Somehow it made one think of the 
overflow of a neyer-failing spring. 

Aunt Nan says she fully expects them to get stalled 
coming out from the landing. She says all that wisdom 
is enough to mire the mules." 

He laughed with her. 

''It takes Miss Nannie to set things out! How will 
she get along with a Massachusetts Yankee? She is such 
a Virginian." 

'' Oh, they 'll get along all right if Miss Abby only has 
some sense of humor. If she has n't, she 'll have a hard 
time. Aunt Nan always sees the fun in things, but she 's 
good. She would n't hurt her feelings for the world. 
It 's mother that is worrying. She is so afraid Miss Abby 
won't eat hot waffles and things." And the spring bub- 
bled over again. 


THE SINGLE AIM 


5 


The summer-house was covered with a wealth of coral 
honeysuckle that shut out the world and all it held. A 
winding graveled walk with a border of old-fashioned 
heart^s-ease led from it to the 'white-pillared portico of 
the house beyond that Virginia Trevilian called home. 

It was a stately structure for the western border. There 
was a great upright whose projecting gable, severe as that 
of a Doric temple, rested on columns of stuccoed ma- 
sonry that gave the place a classic air and justified the 
direction so often given to strangers looking for it, “ Take 
the Lexington road, and keep straight on till you come 
to a little co't-house.'’’ 

On either side were wings which added to the breadth 
of the fagade and gave a reassuring suggestion of hous- 
ing for all guests who might choose to enter its portals. 
Through a rift in the honeysuckle Gordon could see from 
where he sat the broad double porch running back the 
length of the generous ell.’’ Its companion was on the 
other side, with a stairway in it giving access to the upper 
rooms of the ell. 

It was a typical Southern house of the better sort, and 
had been built on the frontier by a loyal son of the Old 
Dominion with memories of Mount Vernon and Monti- 
cello stirring in his soul, and tenderer recollections still, 
perhaps, of his own boyhood’s home in old Albemarle. 

Colonel Trevilian had journeyed away from that old 
home with his flocks and his herds, his men-servants and 
maid-servants, like the patriarchs of old, but he had not 
cut away from the ancient traditions. He would build 
here in the wilderness a new Keswick that should be to 
his infant son what the old Keswick had been to him — 
an ancestral home, full of tender memories, at once an 
anchor and an inspiration. 

He laid his foundations broad and deep. He built td 
stay. The place would go down to Beverly, and Beverly’s 


6 


ORDER NO. 11 


children after him some day, and it must be worthy of the 
Trevilians. Most men have some ruling passion, says 
Henry van Dyke. This was Colonel Trevilian’s: To 
found an honorable house in the State of his adoption ; to 
make the name of Trevilian respected in Jackson County 
as for generations it had been in Albemarle; to be- 
queath to his son and heir an estate commensurate with 
the position he would inherit, and entitling him to a place 
among the landed gentry of the new commonwealth; — 
these were the hopes and aspirations welling up in his 
heart as he had stood twenty years before on the site of 
Keswick, with his first-born son pressed to his breast, and 
looked out over the swelling prairies that lay serene in the 
consciousness of latent strength. This was the thought 
that had dominated his life through all these years. 

Keswick, as it stood in its chaste beauty, was the flower 
of a mingled hope and steadfast purpose whose trunks 
had grown together and whose roots had been striking 
deeper year by year. With some men, love of the soil 
and the habitation they have made to grow ranks with 
love of human things. 

And you go on Monday,” the girl was saying, regret- 
fully,— you and brother.” 

“ Yes. On the Thomas H. Benton— down the Missouri 
and up the Ohio. We separate at Cincinnati, you know. 
I go from there to Lexington, and Beverly on to Vir- 
ginia.” 

I know. It ’s too bad you can’t be together ! ” 

Well, we ’ve kept together a good long time. Our 
ways will have to divide sometime, I suppose. I can 
hardly remember a day that Beverly and I have not seen 
each other — ^ Damon and Pythias,’ father calls us.” 

And mother, " David and Jonathan.’ She says any 
time, ‘ Well, Jonathan, have you seen David? ’ ” 


THE SINGLE AIM 


7 


He smiled at her clever mimicry. 

'' And you Ve been friends through it all, have n’t you ? 
Never fall out, or anything like that?” 

Never. We don’t always think alike, but — ” 

I reckon it is because you are so different that you are 
such good friends. Now Sallie and I have fusses any 
time at all ! But then we always make up. You see. Sal- 
lie has red hair, and — well — I reckon mine is a little tinged 
when it comes to fusses ! I really think it is.” 

He was looking quizzically at the rippling mass of 
dark brown on her shapely head, a wave of which he 
lifted now with a pencil he held. 

'' I think I have observed that myself,” he said, with 
a slight smile , — when it comes to fusses.'' 

'' Go ’way from here, Gordon Lay ! You have n’t at 
all! I am amiability itself! ... I really don’t know 
what we are going to do without you boys,” she continued 
seriously. We shall miss you dreadfully.” 

'' Oh, Virge, will you ? ” He moved toward her, all 
his flippancy gone. 

Why, of course. Brother being in the house with me, 
and such a tease, I could n’t help missing him, and I know 
Sallie will feel the same way about you.” 

He moved back. Sallie was his orphaned cousin who, 
with her mother, had lived in his father’s house for years. 
He was glad she would miss him, but it was not the as- 
surance he most desired to-day. 

Perhaps she saw something of this in his face, for sud- 
denly she exclaimed, “ How sweet those pansies are 1 
Mother calls them heart’s-ease. I just love them!” 

The young man stepped to the border and gathered a 
handful. 

“ I should be glad if I could gratify every unspoken 
wish of yours as quickly, Virginia,” he said very seriously 
as he gave them to her. 


8 


ORDER NO. 11 


She buried her face in their cool fragrance. When 
she lifted it the color was still in her cheek. 

My deepest wish— spoken or unspoken— at present,” 
she said gaily, ignoring his look, is to be somewhere 
where something is likely to happen. It is all very nice 
for you and brother— you are going off to travel and sec 
people as well as go to college. But Sallie and I have 
to stay here at home and content ourselves with the same 
little old school-house that we Ve sat in all our days ! ” 

‘‘ And there could n't be a dearer old place.” 

'‘No doubt— to those that have left it! 'How bless- 
ings brighten as they take their flight ! ’ I suppose I 
should feel the same way if I were just starting off to 
Monticello or Elizabeth Aul Seminary. I wish I were! 
But mother won't hear to a boarding-school. Well,— 
anyway, this is my last year of school ! Next year, when 
I am eighteen, I am going to Richmond on a visit. A-ha 1 
Then I'll be Miss Trevilian! having beaus! and a good 
time ! while you 'll be plodding away in school ! ” 

She rose mockingly, caught her pink lawn skirt daintily 
between her fingers, and made him a low courtesy. 
"Miss Trevilian, Dr. Lay! Ah-h ! " 

" I thought you were Miss Trevilian now— having 
beaus— and a good time.” 

" Oh, boys don't count,” she said scornfully—" boys 
you 've been raised with. I 'm talking about young gen- 
tlemen— real grown-up, sure-enough beaus.” 

"Very fine!” He was feeling unaccountably de- 
pressed. There was likely to be a good deal of truth in 
what she was saying. Then he rose and shook his tall 
frame. " Well,— I reckon I 'd better be going.” 

" Don't hurry. There 's something I want to ask you.” 

He sat down. 

" I went down to the grape-vine tree this morning.” 

" Oh, did you ? ” He spoke eagerly. The grape-vine 


THE SINGLE AIM 


9 


tree had been the trysting-place for the four since they 
were children. I was going down there myself, but—’’ 

'' But you concluded to take a walk down by the branch 
instead. I saw you. Who was the girl with you?” 

She was watching him narrowly. The slight start that 
he gave did not escape her notice. 

He smiled slightly. “ Whom did it look like ? ” 

It looked like Lois Chandler. But, of course, it 
was n’t.” 

The mocking eyes that looked into his had just a sus- 
picion of anxiety in them, as if she wanted confirmation 
of her statement that it could n’t be. 

Why of course?”- 

Because— because— ” 

Is there really any reason why if I— or Beverly— or 
any of the boys— wanted to tell Lois Chandler good-by, 
we should n’t do it ? ” 

Virginia’s head was up, and her hair taking the dan- 
gerous tinge. 

'' None in the world that I know— if you wanted to ! 
Was it Lois ? I don’t see why there should be any secret 
about it.” 

“ Nor 1.” 

Well, then, tell me ! ” 

He was silent a moment. 'Hf there is any secret, Vir- 
ginia, — mind, I don’t say there is, — it is not mine to give 
away. That ’s all.” 

'' Oh, you think she would n’t want it known. Well,— 
perhaps she would n’t ! ” 

Virginia was very much vexed. She had started to 
find out all about this thing, and she had been quietly and 
neatly foiled. And Miss Virginia Trevilian was not ac- 
customed to defeat. 

They sat in silence a few moments, — Virginia pulling 
the hearts relentlessly out of the pansies she loved so. 


ORDER NO. 11 


lO 

Then he spoke quite naturally, as though the last sub- 
ject had been finished up and it was time to introduce 
another. 

'' Virginia, father was telling us a strange story yester- 
day. Would you like to hear it?’’ 

I don’t care.” 

It was spoken very indifferently. He looked up, not 
at her face, but her head. 

Virge, do you know I think your hair is a little 
red.” 

She broke into a laugh at that, ashamed of her temper. 

Nonsense ! There ’s nothing the matter with my hair 
this time. I ’m sure I don’t care whom you go walking 
with. What ’s your story ? ” 

Gordon felt better. It was not his intention to tell her 
anything more about this matter than she already knew, 
but he would be sorry to have anything come between 
them just as he was going away. He settled himself to 
tell the story. 

'' Well,— father was called over to Kansas yesterday— 
to Lawrence— in consultation. Just as he was starting 
home he noticed that there was some excitement down 
the street a little way, and he rode over to see what it was. 
There was a dead man lying on the ground, and a crowd 
around him. Father says he never saw men laboring 
under such excitement. One man turned around to him, 
his teeth chattering and his face as white as a sheet, and 
said, ' Another! ’ He says they all looked as if they had 
seen a ghost.” 

What was the matter with them ? ” Virginia asked, 
her vexation all forgotten in her interest. They surely 
ought to be used to seeing dead men in Kansas by this 
time.” 

'' It was n’t simply his being dead. It was the way he 
was killed. Father got down and examined him closely. 


THE SINGLE AIM 


II 


There was a round bullet-hole in the middle of the fore- 
head/' 

'‘Well, what was there strange in that?" 

" The strange part is to come. They say that every 
little while a man is picked up around there, killed in that 
same way. This is the fifteenth, they told father." 

" Mercy, Gordon ! You scare me to death ! " 

" Is n’t it frightful ! Father says people are perfectly 
desperate over it. Nobody can tell who the next one will 
be, and nobody knows what to protect himself against. 
That 's the worst of it." 

" Have n’t they any clue to who does it ? " 

" Not the slightest. When they find the man he is al- 
ways dead, and ' dead men tell no tales,’ you know. But 
every few months there is a new victim— and always in 
this same way." 

They sat in dismayed contemplation of it. 

" Well ! " said a gay voice in the doorway, " you look 
very solemncholy ! What ’s the matter ? " 

" Hello, Sallie ! Where did you come from ? " 

" Oh, ' from going to and fro in the earth,’ like Satan, 
and ' from walking up and down in it,’— or rather riding, 
if you want the exact truth." 

" Where is brother? " 

" Here ! " spoke a voice over Sallie’s shoulder, as a 
handsome curly head and a pair of broad shoulders were 
thrust into view. " Who ’s callin’ the roll ? " 

" Miss Abby Ann Cheever ! " The sepulchral tone, with 
its strong nasal twang, came from between Virginia’s red 
lips, and she lifted a frowning brow to him. " Don’t let 
me hear you say ' callin’ ’ again ! Remember your g’s ! 
That is what Aunt Nan says she will say to me." 

" Oh, dear! I suppose our incarceration begins Mon- 
day ! ’’ groaned Sallie. 

“ Yes, if the incarcerator does n’t strike a sand-bar. We 


12 


ORDER NO. 11 


are all anxiety about that now. Liz is in a great state of 
excitement because mother says she can wait on Miss 
Abby. I suppose I ’ll have to wait on myself or fall 
back on Mammy. Liz has about drained me of ribbons 
and belts and so forth, and I suppose she thinks a lady 
from Boston will be fat game.” 

After a little more jesting about Miss Abby, Gordon 
asked, “ Really,— what have you two been up to?” 

It was Sallie that answered. 

‘‘ Beverly has been making himself popular with the 
old ladies in the neighborhood by going around telling 
them good-by, — just what you ought to have been doing, 
Mr. Gordon Lay, instead of wasting your time in the 
Trevilian summer-house.” And that was just the. differ- 
ence between the two. Beverly remembered everybody, 
while Gordon thought only of Virginia. 

‘‘ And what were you doing while brother was so vir- 
tuous ? ” asked Virginia. 

Chaperoning Beverly. I could n’t risk him alone with 
all those designing mammas! Of course not. So I sac- 
rificed myself for his good. But what were yow-all so 
sober about ? ” she persisted, dropping into the seat op- 
posite them and making room for Beverly at her side. 
“ I want to know.” 

Virginia says she saw me out walking this morning 
down by the branch, and she was trying to get me to tell 
who it was with me,” said Gordon, looking straight at 
Beverly, not Sallie. Bev, would you tell?” If Vir- 
ginia had been on guard she might have seen a ques- 
tioning look and a swift answering frown pass between 
them. 

No/^ said Beverly, carelessly, girls have too much 
curiosity.^^ 

That was n’t it at all ! ” cried Virginia, indignantlyo 
"" I ’m sure I don’t care who Gordon walks with ! He 


THE SINGLE AIM 


13 

was telling me about the man Dr. Lay saw in Lawrence, 
and-’^ 

“ Ugh ! was n't that horrible ! " interrupted Sallie. 

I Ve been feeling my forehead every fifteen minutes 
since, to see if I had been hit ' unbeknownst ' to me, as 
old Aunt Dicey says. But it seems that this is ‘ for men 
only.' " 

“What do you make of it, Gordon?" asked Beverly. 
“ Sallie has just been telling me about it." 

Gordon shook his head with a gesture of giving it up. 
“ I hardly know. It seems to me it must be the work of 
one man— not many could aim like that and hit the mark 
every time — but what the motive can — " 

“ Don't let 's talk any more about it ! " cried Virginia, 
impetuously. “ I 'm ready to jump out of my skin now! 
I know I will dream of it to-night. Sallie, have you seen 
the school-house since it was fixed up ? Let 's go and take 
a look at it." 

The girls started together and the two young men fol- 
lowed, discussing the case as they went. They were strik- 
ingly alike in height and build, a fact that Virginia, look- 
ing back to make some remark, noticed for the first time 
with a start. 

Then Sallie cried, “ Oh, there is your father now. See 1 
he 's waving the letter." And the school-house idea was 
abandoned. 

They all gathered on the porch to wait for him,— Mrs. 
Trevilian and Miss Nannie coming out too, and even 
Mammy hovering in the background to be the first to 
spread the news. 

Colonel Trevilian threw the bridle to Jake and came up 
the walk bordered with flowers. 

“ How are you, Gordon ? Howdy, Sallie ? As bloom- 
ing as ever, I see. Well, my dear," — turning to his wife, 
— “ she 'll be here to-morrow." 


H 


ORDER NO. 11 


That evening, as Beverly Trevilian started from the 
dining-room, where he had been doing justice to prairie- 
chicken and hot waffles, Virginia looked at the hat he 
had taken up. It was a black and white straw just like 
Gordon’s. 

''Brother, where were you this morning?” 

" Out hunting. Are n’t you* eating the fruit of my la- 
bors now ? ” 

" Oh!” 

It was Gordon, after all, then 


CHAPTER 11 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 



the close of the Keswick school the June before, 


it had been decided that they must have a better 
teacher than they had heretofore had, or else send their 
daughters away as they had sent their sons. Colonel 
Trevilian advocated securing one from the North. 

Will you board her? ’’ asked Mr. Swamscott. 

They all wanted the teacher, but none of them cared 
to introduce a new and doubtful element into their homes. 

Yes, sir, I ’ll board her,” said the Colonel, stoutly. 

My servants are beyond tampering with.” 

The whole matter had been put into his hands, and ne- 
gotiations were entered upon at once with a prominent 
educator of the State by which a competent lady was to 
be chosen for the position. That lady was Miss Abby 
Ann Cheever, of Massachusetts, who came with unques- 
tionable recommendations as to character and attain- 
ments. 

They had the vaguest ideas about her on Grand Prairie, 
having seen but few Northern people in the course of their 
lives and being accustomed to look a little askance at a 
Massachusetts Yankee as a possible, even probable. Abo- 
litionist. “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin ” was fresh in the minds 
of the South then, though with most of them, it must be 
admitted, it was hearsay knowledge. 

Do you suppose I will have to keep cold light bread 
for her all the time?’' asked Mrs. Trevilian of Miss 
Nannie. 

‘‘ No ! Of course you won’t ! She ’ll take to hot bread 


i6 


ORDER NO. 11 


like a duck to water if she does n’t have to cook it. They 
say the Yankees all do.” 

‘‘ I hope so,” sighed Mrs. Trevilian. '' It would be a 
heap of trouble to have to keep in cold light bread.” 

‘‘ I only hope she is ladylike,” Miss Nannie said. 

Somehow, I always think of these Northern teachers 
that go about the country as having short hair and bad 
manners.” 

Why, so do I ! ” marveled her sister-in-law. I 
wonder why.” 

In far-off Massachusetts Miss Abby Ann Cheever was 
pondering the new relation with quite as much concern. 
She and her family with her felt that she was almost tak- 
ing her life in her hands to go among the border ruf- 
fians.” But her younger brother. Dr. Abiel Cheever, had 
been one of the first of the faithful to speed to Kansas 
when the race for occupancy began ; and if things got too 
hot in Missouri she could go to him in Lawrence, it was 
decided. 

Perhaps it might not be dangerous, after all ; but then 
you never could tell what these slaveholders would do — 
they were like the human heart, '' deceitful above all 
things and desperately wicked,” said her maiden aunt, 
Miss Tabitha Cheever. 

It will give you an opportunity, my daughter, to do 
something for those poor suffering people, the slaves,” 
said her father, impressively. I want you should make 
use of every occasion that presents itself for instilling 
truth into their darkened minds. ' Be instant in season 
and out of season,’ an admonition that Miss Abby 
Ann Cheever really did not need, being, like her father, a 
strong partizan, and a trifle too much inclined by tempera- 
ment to lay stress upon the last clause of St. Paul’s com- 
mand. 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 17 

If you were only going to Kansas I should feel safe 
about you/’ sighed her mother. But Missouri 1 ” 

The Cheevers were Abolitionists of the straitest sect, — 
a fact entirely unknown to Colonel Trevilian and the 
rest of her constituency, or— it is safe to say— Miss 
Abby Ann would never have been invited to undertake 
the training of their children. 

Well, Kansas is not far away,” said Miss Abby, sooth- 
ingly. ‘‘ There is not even a river to separate it from 
Jackson County.” 

Alas ! Alas ! A trivial fact, apparently, but one 
fraught with mighty consequences to that doomed region 
a few years later. 

The weather was not propitious for pleasant impres- 
sions the day Miss Abby Ann Cheever reached her desti- 
nation. There had been a downfall of rain for a day and 
night. Everybody knows what that does to western 
Missouri roads. The black mud looked bottomless. 

Miss Abby’s depression matched it as from the guards 
of the Thomas H. Benton (the same that was to carry 
the boys away) she watched the mule-teams with their 
loaded freight-wagons struggle through it. If there had 
been a waiting Pullman bound for Boston, it is possible 
that the Grand Prairie school might have been minus a 
head that day and thereafter. But a journey from Massa- 
chusetts to Missouri in the fifties was a thing not to be 
entered upon lightly or unadvisedly; and having been 
made, the return trip was seldom taken short of years. 
So retreat formed no part of Miss Cheever’s thoughts as 
she looked out upon the scene before her. 

It was only a steamboat-landing that she saw. The 
town lay four miles back, and Keswick a great way be- 
yond. 

‘‘ Do you know how far it is from Independence to 

2 


i8 


ORDER NO. 11 


Colonel Trevilian’s place?’’ she had asked the captain 
when she found he knew where she was going. Colonel 
Trevilian had written to him and placed Miss Cheever 
under his care from St. Louis to Independence, not having 
much opinion of women traveling around the country 
alone. The captain had shown her every attention that 
a gentleman could, but Miss Abby’s scholarly instincts 
were stirred to their depths at his speech. 

Oh, it ’s a right smart piece,” he answered. I reckon 
it must be fo’teen or fifteen miles — maybe mo’.” 

She was thinking of the distance as she looked out at 
the landing. Fortunately, however, a toilsome road— like 
life itself— must be traversed one step at a time, and most 
of its sloughs are hidden from us until we are in them. 
Then our energies are absorbed in getting out, which les- 
sens the tediousness of it incalculably. 

Miss Abby kept her place as the boat puffed and 
churned the turbid brown waters of the Missouri in its 
efforts to make the landing. With New England pre- 
paredness, she had had her effects in place an hour ago. 
She had nothing to do but to watch the scene and look out 
for Colonel Trevilian. 

The captain had relieved her fear that she might pos- 
sibly find nobody to meet her. 

'‘Didn’t Colonel Trevilian say he would come?” he 
asked. " Well, ma’am, he will be here if he has to swim 
a hawss.” 

She rested upon this assurance and looked about her 
with a mighty interest. In addition to the natural curi- 
osity of a newcomer about the country that is to be his 
home, there was the intense tragic interest felt by every 
Northern man or woman who set foot for the first time on 
slave soil,— that unwilling fascination which impels us 
against our will to look upon the thing that we know will 
haunt us forever with its horrors. 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 


19 


'' I am face to face with it ! ’’ she said to herself. 

These are undoubtedly slaves ! ’’ 

She was looking down at the roustabouts lounging 
around the landing while they waited for the gang-plank 
to be thrown out. 

Miss Abby Cheever had in her youth, now some time 
past, seen a picture that made an ineffaceable impression 
upon her— an impression deepened by constant recurrence 
to the subject and much somber thought in one deepen- 
ing groove. It was of a naked negro on one knee, with 
manacled hands raised imploringly, while over him stood 
his cruel master with upraised lash. 

She had always thought of slaves as looking like that. 
Not that she really supposed the business or pleasure of 
the Southern planter would be to chastise his servants 
from morn till eve, nor indeed that in a decent com- 
munity they were kept in a state of nature as to their 
wearing-apparel,— she was too bright a woman to think 
either one. But a picture makes a lasting impression on 
a child,— a fact not unknown to the purveyors of such il- 
lustrations in the years of crude art and deep feeling pre- 
ceding the Civil War. 

Now as Miss Abby looked into the faces of the men 
below she did not see the sullen look, the hopeless woe, 
that ought to have been there. She was distinctly — re- 
lieved? No— disappointed ! It was as when one stand- 
ing beside Pisa's tower says, with outraged surprise, '' It 
is n't right ! It does n't lean enough ! " 

A tall, fine-looking man with iron-gray hair and a 
slouch-hat was at the landing. Back a little distance was 
a carriage with a mule-team and a colored driver. A 
gray horse was fastened near. Miss Abby felt instinc- 
tively that this was her company. Nor was she mistaken. 
When the gang-plank was thrown out, the tall man 
boarded the boat and the captain piloted him to Miss 


20 ORDER NO. 11 

Abby, leaving his post to deliver his charge into the Colo- 
nel’s hands. 

Colonel Trevilian was such a man as a woman instinc- 
tively likes and trusts. He greeted her as cordially as if 
he had always known her, apologized for the weather, 
which he feared had given her a poor impression of the 
State, thanked the captain for his attentions to her, ap- 
parently under the impression that he had received a 
personal favor, relieved her of the bandbox brought in 
her hand all the way from Massachusetts, and gave it to 
a negro man called from the wharf with a peremptory 
“ Here, boy ! take this to my carriage ! ” his hand instinc- 
tively seeking his pocket as the service was rendered. 

Miss Abby looked around for the boy, but could not see 
any. She said good-by to the captain and started across 
the plank. 

''Wait, Miss Cheever! Better take my arm, madam,” 
said the Colonel, hastily. " It ’s mighty slippery ! ” 

He led her carefully across the gangway, helped her up 
an embankment, and brought up at the edge of a mud- 
hole from which there seemed no escape. He looked at it 
ruefully. Then—" If you don’t object— I ’m an old man, 
you know,” and before Miss Cheever knew what there 
was to object to, he had lifted her bodily in his strong 
arms and set her down dry-shod on the other side. 

" There really was no other way, madam,” he said 
apologetically, " without gettin’ yo’ feet wet. Reuben, 
back up as close as you can. There! You won’t feel 
afraid of the mules. Miss Cheever? I as-shore you they 
are perfectly safe, madam. I believe they don’t use them 
much in your country. But a mule’s foot is made for 
mud. We would get along mighty porely without them 
here.” 

He was tucking a Bay State shawl snugly around her. 
"There! Now, Miss Cheever, I will leave you in Uncle 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 


21 


Reuben’s care. He ’ll take good care of you. He is a 
careful driver.” 

Uncle Reuben acknowledged the introduction by tak- 
ing off his hat and murmuring, '' Sarvent, Mistis,” and 
Miss Abby bowed, strangely embarrassed. She did not 
know what to call him. 

'' The roads are so heavy that I rode over on horse- 
back,” continued the Colonel, but I ’ll be right along by 
you.” 

His deferential, protecting manner was most grateful to 
Miss Abby Cheever, who had knocked around the world 
a good deal and been suffered on many occasions to look 
out for herself. She could do it as well as anybody, but 
when this kind, deferential gentleman took upon himself, 
as a matter of course, the task of seeing to her comfort 
and helping her over mud-holes— she liked it. We all do, 
no matter how independent we are, provided only that the 
hand be strong enough— and gentle. 

Colonel Trevilian rode along by ’the carriage when it 
was possible to do so, and kept up a scattering fire of con- 
versation. 

Getting along all right. Miss. Cheever ? That ’s good. 
Yes, madam, it is fo’ miles from the landing to Indepen- 
dence, and about fo’teen from there to Keswick.” It 
sounded very much to Miss Abby as if he said thar.” 

Then a mud-hole would intervene and conversation be 
suspended. And Miss Abby would look shudderingly 
into the depths and think of the mule’s foot and hope for 
the best. She had never dreamed of such mud— and no 
wonder. In rock-ribbed New England she had never seen 
the material, in quality or quantity, of which it«could be 
made. She was literally in the deepest, richest soil of a 
deep, rich State. 

“ The going is very bad,” she remarked after one such 
slough. 


22 


ORDER NO. 11 


Unde Reuben half reined up the mules. 

Ma’am?’’ 

'' I say the going is very bad.” 

He looked blank. 

'' The going— the roads, you know.” 

Oh, yaas’m ! yaas’m ! ” The old man wore a relieved 
look, as of one who had found his bearings. Yaas’m, 
hit is so. De travelin’ ’s mons’us bad, mistis.” 

It gave Miss Abby a distinct shock to be called mis- 
tis.” It seemed to make her a partaker in the slaveholder’s 
guilt. Her first impulse was to repudiate the title and 
tell him that one was his master, even Christ,” and none 
was his mistress or should be. 

But Uncle Reuben had used the term so cheerfully and 
naturally, with so little of self-abasement, that she re- 
strained the impulse and decided to wait a while. But 
she felt like a coward. In season and out of season,” 
her father had said, and she had promised. 

Miss Abby sincerely wished to enter into conversation 
with Uncle Reuben, but hardly knew how to begin. 
She was desirous of asking immediate questions about his 
state of servitude and his feeling in regard to it. He had 
probably been a slave all his life. How the iron must 
have entered his soul ! He was doubtless brooding over it 
now. 

In reality, Uncle Reuben was wondering what sort 
of a white-’oman ” this was that was so unsociable and 
say-nothing. If it had been Miss Matt Dawson, now, 
whom he so often brought out from Independence, he 
would have had a chance to tell her all about the family 
and AuM Dilsey, and his own rheumatism and the last 
big meeting and a dozen other things— and she would 
have been interested in them all. But this white-’oman! 
And when an old-time darky begins to denominate any 
lady of his acquaintance a white-’oman ” it is a sure sign 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 


23 


that her stock is depreciating. But, of course, Uncle 
Reuben was too well trained to do more than think all 
this. 

Have you lived long at Colonel Trevilian’s? ’’ 

It seemed to her a delicate way of introducing the sub- 
ject uppermost in her mind without referring directly to 
his bondage. She could not bring herself to call him 
uncle,’’ which seemed to her a kind of claiming rela- 
tionship for which she was unprepared, and yet she did 
not want to call him Reuben. Her question seemed curt 
and almost impolite without the softening which the name 
would have given. 

Uncle Reuben raised his hat with a gesture that was 
the counterpart of Colonel Trevilian’s. 

'' All my life, mistis,” he said, with visible pride. '' I 
was bawn in de fambly.” 

Miss Abby caught her breath. She did not know whe- 
ther this was supposed to be matter for congratulation or 
condolence except from his pride of demeanor. 

'' Yaas’m, we all done b’longe4 to de Trevilians as fur 
back as de reck’nin’ goes.” 

He was thinking, '' Ef she ’lows I ’m anybody’s bought 
nigger I ’ll jes’ let her know right now she ’s on de wrong 
trail!” 

Then he produced his highest trump. 

My daddy was ole marse’s body-servant. Yaas’m.” 
He announced it as if it were a patent of nobility. '' I 
druv Marse William over to Jedge Caruthers to be mar- 
ried and den brung ’em back nex’ day to de infa’r. 
Yaas’m.” He waited a moment for this to sink in. I 
been drivin’ of de kerriage ever sence, even to carryin’ ole 
miss to her las’ home. Marse William say I was de one 
what was ’titled to it, caze my daddy was ole marse’s 
body-servant. Yaas’m.” 

Miss Abby felt that she was taking soundings in an un- 


H 


ORDER NO. 11 


fathomable sea. The sympathy she was longing to give 
voice to seemed strangely inconsequent as she listened to 
this recital of an interlacing of interests in joy and sor- 
row that linked black and white together. She deter- 
mined to defer the expression of it till a more opportune 
time. 

It was hours before a turn in the road brought Kes- 
wick into view, and then it was miles away, for one sees 
a great distance on the prairie. Uncle Reuben pointed to 
it with his whip. 

Dar ^s our house,’^ he said, with manifest pride. 

Yaas’m, dat’s Keswick. Can you see de white pillars? 
Jes’ thoo dat clump er trees. 

As they got nearer he called attention to the different 
points about the place. 

Way over dar beyant de gyarden is de buryin'- 
groun’.’’ 

‘‘ I don’t see any church,” commented Miss Abby. She 
was looking for New England on Missouri soil. 

No’m, dey ain’ no chu’ch roun’ dar. De chu’ch is 
way over hyarnder. You jes’ kin see it.” 

I want to know ! ” 

And Uncle Reuben repeated his statement. 

Don’t they have the graveyard by the church ? ” 

'' No’m. Dey all has fambly buryin’-groun’s roun’ 
hyeah. Dey ain’t nobody in ourn but Miss Bettie’s little 
chil’n an’ ole ’oman Judy. She died de same summer dey 
did, an’ Miss Bettie say she want her laid out dar wid ’em. 
Of co’se dey ’s a fence betwixt ’em, but de same wilier 
wha’ me an’ Miss Bettie planted over de chil’n shades 
Aunt Judy too. I Ve hauled bar ’Is an’ bar ’Is er water fui 
dat wilier. Yaas’m, I is so.” 

It was dusk when the carriage stopped in front of Kes- 
wick. A little negro had seen them and run down to 
open the “big gate.” Colonel Trevilian was waiting to 


MISS ABBY ANN ARRIVES 


25 


receive them, Beverly by his side. A shambling negro 
boy had taken the bridle carelessly thrown to him, and 
led the gray horse to the stable. 

Peeping out from behind chimneys and around rose- 
bushes and various other points of vantage were nappy 
heads surmounting round, shiny, brown faces that ap- 
peared, disappeared, and reappeared with bewildering 
rapidity. 

Miss Cheever, my son Beverly, who is unfortunately 
a little too old to come under your instruction. Beverly, 
give Miss Cheever your arm up the walk.’’ 

On the porch beside the white pillars were Mrs. Tre- 
vilian. Miss Nannie, and Virginia, while in the open door 
— ostentatiously holding aloft a candle to light the way— 
stood Mammy. 

Mrs. Trevilian took the worn traveler into her motherly 
arms and gave her a kiss of welcome as if she had been 
an old friend. 

Miss Abby was so visibly surprised at this that Miss 
Nannie tempered her greeting to a hand-shake, but Vir- 
ginia put up her lips as a matter of course. 

And so Miss Abby was installed. 


CHAPTER III 


WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING 
' bedtime Mrs. Trevilian took the new teacher to 



AL her room herself, turning down the bed, and look- 
ing after her comfort in various ways. She left Liz, Vir- 
ginia’s maid, to help her undress, greatly to Miss Abby’s 
consternation. 

Help her undress, indeed! She had performed that 
office for herself since she was four, having at that tender 
age been crowded into the world of individual enterprise 
by the advent of a second sister younger than herself. 
She would greatly have preferred Liz’s room to her help. 

But the girl took her bonnet and put it on the shelf in 
the wardrobe quite as a matter of course, folded her shawl 
and laid it away also, and then waited for orders. 

Miss Abby had none to give. She wanted of all things 
to have her attendant go away. LFndressing seemed to 
her too private and personal a matter to be entered upon 
before another, and that other of an alien race so mani- 
festly curious. 

The girl made no motion to leave, however, and at last 
Miss Abby began to take down her hair. Liz seized the 
brush. 

''You want me to bresh yo’ ha’r?” she asked, with 
recollections of the sociable time that always accompanied 
this nightly service to her Miss Virginia. 

Miss Abby drew back. 

" Oh, no ! ” she said hastily, with a creepy feeling at the 


26 


WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE 27 


thought of a negro's coming near her. I never let any- 
body touch my hair." 

Liz felt the rebuff. Negroes, like children, are quick 
to read mental states, particularly those that are antago- 
nistic, and Miss Abby's feeling amounted to absolute re^ 
pulsion. She took herself to task for this afterward, but 
at the time it was entirely beyond her control. 

'' Ef you 'll set down I 'll take off yo' shoes," Liz said 
rather coldly. Clearly, she would have to prompt this 
New England lady as to what a lady's-maid might prop- 
erly do. 

Divesting Miss Abby's feet of their outer coverings, 
she found them decidedly cold, and her kindly instincts 
were at once aroused. Stepping out upon the porch, she 
returned with a noggin, which she filled with hot water 
from a bucket on the hearth. 

Miss Abby sat in bewildered wonder at what was com- 
ing. A moment later Liz was on her knees before her, 
stripping off a stocking from that astounded maiden's 
foot. 

What are you doing ? " she demanded sternly. She 
began to think the girl was half-witted. 

I gwineter wash yo' foots," Liz returned, half indig- 
nantly. She did not understand having friendly offices 
met this way. 

Whatf/^ 

'' Yo' foots is cold. You ain' gwine to bed wi' cold 
foots, is you? I gwineter wash 'em fur you." 

‘‘ Certainly not ! " said Miss Abby, firmly, withdrawing 
the members in dispute within the security of her dress- 
skirts. I should n't think of allowing such a thing ! " 

Liz's face darkened. She took up the noggin and all 
the rest of the paraphernalia. At the door she turned. 

I reckon you ain't never is had any maid, is you ? " 
she asked. 


28 


ORDER NO. 11 


It was as much as she dared say — much more than she 
would have dared let Miss Bettie know she had said. 
The fatal suspicion was forming in her mind that Miss 
Abby was po’ white folks. ’’ 

'' Never ! ’’ said Miss Abby, firmly. ‘‘ And I never want 
to have! I don't think I shall need you any more to- 
night." 

Liz retired with head up. 

Miss Abby told Mrs. Trevilian one day about this epi- 
sode. It was after she had been there long enough to 
feel better acquainted than she did that first night. 

Yes," Mrs. Trevilian had said quietly, I knew about 
it. Liz told me." 

'' She did? Well, don't you think it was. a very strange 
thing for her to do?— very— well— familiar ? " 

‘‘ From your point of view— yes. But not from hers. 
On the contrary, it was a very natural thing for her to do." 

Miss Abby stared. She did not more than half like 
Mrs. Trevilian's taking it so quietly. 

I should like to know the point of view that would 
make it natural," she said dryly. 

'' Well, I can easily give it to you. Liz has been Vir- 
ginia's maid from the time she was born. I gave her to 
her then." (There was a little obscurity about the pro- 
nouns, but not more than the facts warranted. Nobody 
could have told whether Virginia was given to Liz or Liz 
to Virginia.) '' She has always done for her just the 
things she wanted to do for you— put away her things, 
brushed her hair, and bathed her feet. She naturally 
supposed that you would want the same things done, and 
when she found your feet cold she offered you, in the 
kindness of her heart, a hot foot-bath. I will grant that 
she was unfortunate in her wording of the offer—" she 
laughed a little at the remembrance of what was said and 
done— '‘ but she meant it kindly." 

" But I should n't think of allowing anybody to do so 


WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE 29 

menial a thing for me ! '' exclaimed Miss Abby. ‘‘ I told 
her so/^ 

She does n’t look upon it as menial. And she did n’t 
understand your motive in declining. You only suc- 
ceeded in hurting her feelings. They are very much like 
children, but they almost always mean well.” 

‘‘ They are a very strange people,” said Miss Abby. 
‘‘ I don’t understand them at all.” 

‘‘Don’t you think,” Mrs. Trevilian returned gently but 
suggestively, “ that until you do, it might be better for 
you to take them just as they are? They are all right 
when you know them. And, Miss Abby,” she added, 
“ while we are on the subject— I wish you would n’t call 
them ‘ slaves ’ in their presence. We always speak of 
them as the servants.” 

“ They are slaves,” returned Miss Abby, stoutly. 

“ Yes, but there is no use keeping it constantly before 
them.” 

“ It ought to be kept before them ! ” The New Eng- 
land woman would not compromise. “ And before every- 
body else too ! ” 

She wrote to her mother that night. 

“ These are the most inconsistent people I ever saw. 
They will require the most menial, degrading services 
from the blacks, and then caution others, who would n’t 
think of allowing such things to be done for them, not to 
hurt their feelings!'' 

But this was weeks after that first night, when, after 
Liz’s dismissal, the harassed lady was preparing for bed. 
She had just blown out her candle and ensconced herself 
in the high feather-bed when there came a knock at the 
door. 

“Who’s there?” 

“ It ’s me,” answered Liz. “ I got to come in.” 

Miss Abby rose and unlocked the door. There stood 
Liz with a bundle of bedding in her arms. 


ORDER NO. 11 


o 


What do you want ? demanded Miss Abby, some- 
what abruptly. She was mystified beyond measure at the 
apparition. 

Miss Bettie she say I was to sleep in hyeah on de 

To sleep in my room! For what reason? Haven’t 
you any other place ? ” 

Liz stared. 

Yaas’m ! Co’se I is ! But she ’low maybe you was 
skeery.” 

'' But I don’t want you to stay ! I ’m not afraid 1 ” 

Liz quietly deposited her bed-clothes on the floor, and 
began arranging her pallet. 

‘‘ Yaas’m. Miss Bettie she ’low maybe you ’d say it 
wa’n’t wuth while, but she say I was to stay.” 

Apparently, that settled it. Much against her will. 
Miss Abby relocked the door and betook herself to bed. 

It is not strange that she looked upon her protector with 
some shrinking. The next day would be the Sabbath, and 
Liz’s locks were in training for the sanctuary, which is 
to say they had just been '' wropped,”— and that means 
that they were done up in innumerable pigtails tied with 
white cord strung from one to the other. It formed a net- 
work which to Miss Abby’s unaccustomed eyes was start- 
lingly uncanny. The poor lady could not quiet her soul. 

Long after Liz was lost in slumber, and giving unmis- 
takable evidence of it, Miss Abby lay with fascinated, 
staring eyes turned toward that head. 

The moon rose, and threw wavering shadows of leafy 
branches across the window-panes. The dogs bayed the 
moon, and Miss Abby thought of bloodhounds and fu- 
gitive slaves. The feather-bed grew hotter and more 
cavernous, the atmosphere more oppressive. She rose at 
last and stepped, shudderingly, past Liz to the back win- 
dow to raise it. 


WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE 31 


The soft moonlight flooded the place. The smoke- 
house, the hen-house, the spring-house, et al, stood out 
black and ghostly ; beyond, she could see the line of cabins 
which stood to her for so many prison-houses of de- 
spair. To think that those poor things were all locked in ! 

And Liz snored on. 

Miss Abby Cheever knelt down on the other side of the 
bed and invoked the protection of the Almighty against 
foes without and fears within.’’ 

She felt very, very far from New England. 

She was sleeping soundly the next morning, worn out 
with her ride and her vigil, when she was awakened by 
a prolonged knock. It fitted in so perfectly with her 
dream that it was repeated several times before she was 
brought to a realization of her surroundings. 

Who is it ? ” she called at last, sitting up in bed, and 
brushing her hair back, with a confused notion of setting 
herself to rights. She was not accustomed to having her 
privacy invaded in this manner. 

’T ain’t nobody but me,” said a feminine voice. I 
come to mek yo’ fire.” Then in a grumbling undertone, 
I reckon dat triflin’ Liz gwineter sleep tell de jedgment 
day!” 

Miss Abby unlocked the door, and Mammy appeared 
with a shovel of coals. 

’Scuse me, young mistis,” she remarked apologeti- 
cally ; '' I wa’n’t gwineter wake you, but I could n’t git in. 
Huccome you to lock yo’ do’ ? ” 

I always lock my door,” returned Miss Abby. 

Mammy was on her knees before the fireplace. She 
looked around in open-mouthed astonishment. 

You do! Name o’ God, mistis, what sort er outland- 
ish place is you come f’om dat you gotter lock de do’? 
We-all don’t never lock up.” 


32 


ORDER NO. 11 


“ But this is an outside door/’ protested Miss Abby. 
It opened upon the upper porch. 

We-all don’t lock none of ’em. I don’t reckon dere ’s 
a key on dis place— of co’se de cabins jes’ has latches— but 
dey useter be keys to de house. Whar did you git dis 
hyeah key ? ” 

‘‘ It was in the door, where a key ought to be,” said 
Miss Abby. 

Humph ! I dunno whar it come f ’om. I ain’ 
hyeahed about any keys befo’.” In reality, Mrs. Tre- 
vilian had the day before hunted it up, thinking that Miss 
Abby might feel nervous with her door unfastened. 

De front-do’ key was lost when Miss Figinia was a 
baby,” said Mammy, returning to the subject after the 
first blaze was started. “ I always mistrested Marse Bev- 
erly throwed it down in de well, but we ain’t know fur 
sho’, an’ de do’ ain’t been locked sence. No’ml Dey 
ain’t no rogues aroun’ hyeah.” 

“ I prefer to lock my door,” Miss Abby said, with dig- 
nity. '' I don’t mind getting up to let you in. Or I could 
make my fire myself if you would have some kindling 
always ready.” 

Now kindling was an unknown quantity on that place. 
They always used chips and a shovelful of coals. And 
who ever heard of a lady making her own fire 1 

There was a slight but very expressive shrug of Mam- 
my’s shoulders as she turned to the fireplace, the full im- 
port of which Miss Abby would not have understood had 
she seen it. There was a volume back of it. Liz had 
promptly communicated her suspicions, the night before, 
that the new teacher was '' po’ white folks,” and this offer 
to make her own fire confirmed it. It was reported im- 
mediately at the cabins, which was unfortunate, for it 
placed Miss Abby in a very equivocal position. 

Mammy now applied herself severely to the fire and 


WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE 33 


departed without further conversation. She did not wish 
to be too familiar until this new lady's social rank had 
been definitely ascertained. 

I am afraid this seems rather early to you, Miss 
Cheever," said Mrs. Trevilian as she poured out the coffee 
a little later. We are obliged to have breakfast about 
the usual time on Sunday in order to let the servants get 
to church. We have some distance to go." 

Do they go to the same church with you ? " asked 
Miss Abby, in much surprise. 

Yes, most of them are Presbyterians. Aunt Judy 
was a Baptist, and Aunt Viny is now, but all the others 
who are church members at all go with us. When the 
church was organized years ago, soon after we settled 
here, nine of the thirteen members were from Keswick, 
—Mr. Trevilian, Sister Nan and myself, and six of the 
older servants." 

She called Emmeline to her v/ith a motion of the eye- 
brows, and said in a low tone, '' Hand Miss Cheever the 
cold light bread." 

But Miss Cheever was finding hot waffies quite suffi- 
cient. 

Your pancakes are very nice," she remarked affably. 

How do you keep them so hot? " 

She had noticed before she came down the great dis- 
tance between the kitchen and the house. Don't you 
find it very difficult with the kitchen so far removed ? " 
'' Not at all," said Mrs. Trevilian, cheerfully. There 
is always a little negro waiting to run right in with 
them." 

But when it rains? " 

Oh, they turn a pan over them, or if it is raining very 
hard they take an umbrella. Oh, no, it is not at all in- 
convenient. Have a hot one." 

They are delicious," said Miss Abby, showing her 

a 


34 


ORDER NO. 11 


faith by her works. I never saw any before of this 
shape. Woffles, do you call them ? 

Emmeline’s under jaw dropped, and the little darky 
who had brought them in started on a run for the kitchen. 

''Never seed any wafHes befo'!’' cried Aunt Viny. 

My Lawd ! whar she raised ? ” 

''Oh, whar'd you come f’om? 

Knock a nigger down—” 

s 

sang Aunt Viny’s Bob, who chanced at that moment to 
be within hearing. 

"Git out er hyeah, you limb er Satan ! ” cried Aunt 
Viny, advancing threateningly upon him. " You let me 
hyeah you imperin’ Marse William’s white folks an’ I 
lay I ’ll-” 

Bob’s sentence was indeterminate. Dodging her up- 
lifted arm with a dexterity born of much practice, he was 
at the woodpile before it was concluded. There he sat 
down to muse confusedly upon the fact that what was 
sauce for the goose was by no means always sauce for the 
goslings. 


CHAPTER IV 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 

V IRGINIA, you M better go in the carriage with us,” 
said Mrs. Trevilian, as she heard her daughter ask 
some question about Rob Roy. 

“ No’m, I don’t want to. I want to ride.” 

'' It is too muddy for you to ride,” said Mrs. Trevilian, 
firmly. You would ruin your riding-skirt.” 

Now, mother! I’m going to ridel— with brother.” 
There was rebellion in Virginia’s eyes. She turned to 
Beverly, for at this moment Mrs. Trevilian stepped to the 
door to speak to her husband. '' Brother, say some- 
thing! ” 

“ It ’s all right going, Virge ; but you see I ’m engaged 
for the return trip,” was Beverly’s prudent aside. 

'' Well, I ’ll come home with father.” 

'^Father! Yes, I know you will! . . . Oh, yes, mo- 
ther, Virge and I are going together. It ’s all planned. 
I ’ll look out for her skirt.” 

Still Mrs. Trevilian demurred. She would be a great 
deal more comfortable inside the carriage with us.” 

''No, she wouldn’t!” said Miss Nannie Trevilian, as 
Virginia flew up-stairs. She was younger than her sister- 
in-law. " There are different ways of taking comfort. 
Some people take it in pairs.” 

When the carriage reached the church, Virginia was 
seated demurely up in the corner of the Trevilian pew, 
Sallie in the corresponding corner of the seat back of her, 
and Gordon and Beverly across the partition on the men’s 
side. It just happened that they came so. 

35 


36 


ORDER NO. 11 


Hickory Grove church, to which Miss Abby was that 
morning introduced, was the counterpart of hundreds of 
Missouri churches in the year of our Lord 1859. There 
was the same impersonal character to its architecture that 
appeared in the dwelling-houses and in the pioneer mil- 
linery, where the presiding genius invested triennially, 
or at most biennially, in a block, and made all bonnets 
after one model, trimming them impartially with a bow 
behind, three loops at the side, and a bunch of flowers. 

The head-gear inside of Hickory Grove church, how- 
ever, was much more varied than this, for it was made up 
of sunbonnets of all hues, and scoops with blue or green 
barege skirts and elaborate quillings and bows, with here 
and there a flimsy, flippant, flowery creation from the 
town milliner’s. 

The bonnets ranged all the way from the dainty white 
ruffled ones, with pink strings and bows from under 
which fresh young faces peeped out, to the austere row 
of brown ginghams that covered the heads of the Mc- 
Tavishes, mother and daughters, who all wore dresses 
of the same material, down to the youngest, a babe in 
arms, —suggesting irresistibly the purchase of an '' origi- 
nal package.” 

Miss Nannie Trevilian’s piety had been seriously 
called in question by some of the devout scoops of Hickory 
Grove church, because she would always have the latest 
fashions from Lexington or Independence,— sometimes, 
it was said, even sending all the way to St. Louis for her 
summer bonnet. Kansas City then had so lately got over 
being '' Westport Landing ” that it could not be expected 
to furnish fashions for the gentry of Jackson County 

Outwardly, the building was not unlike other rural 
churches Miss Abby had seen ; but inside there were some 
startling features. In the first place, the pulpit, instead of 
being at the farther end of the church, was placed be- 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 37 


tween the two front doors, and all who went in must face 
the whole staring congregation. This was the distin- 
guishing excellence of Missouri churches in ante-bellum 
days, and made it possible for curiosity to be frankly 
gratified without unseemly stretching of necks and turn- 
ing of heads. A country church is so largely a social in- 
stitution that it seems greatly desirable to provide for 
this. 

The Trevilians were a little late that morning, and the 
peculiar architecture of the Missouri church never an- 
swered a better purpose than when they walked up the 
aisle. There was a large attendance in spite of the roads. 

Miss Abby stood the test. She was well dressed and 
ladylike in appearance. The telegraphed verdict was that 
she would do. 

There was time, before the service began, for the new- 
comer to look around and make some observations on her 
own account. 

The place was as bare and guiltless of adornment as a 
monk’s cell,— uncarpeted, uncurtained, uncushioned,— its 
painted seats hard and unyielding, like the faith of its 
worshipers. The men sat on one side, the women on the 
other, and giggling, whispering girls and half-grown 
boys flocked each by themselves. Somehow, there always 
seem to be more half-grown boys at a country church than 
anywhere else in the world. They lounged outside till the 
service began, the older ones ready to help from her horse 
every woman, young or old, that appeared. They may 
have been lacking in the outward polish of conventional 
life, those stalwart young frontiersmen, but they had 
been trained to deferential helpfulness to women for gen- 
erations before they were born. 

Not only was the church without ornament, but tt 
seemed to Miss Abby also without ordinary comforts. 
Mrs. Trevilian, whose family in Virginia had been mild 


38 


ORDER NO. 11 


ritualists of the Low Church type, had scandalized the 
congregation when the church was built by putting in her 
pew a footstool and a strip of carpet. It was thought to 
lean toward worldliness, if indeed it was not a concession 
to the '' scarlet woman,’’ and was looked at askance at 
first, but her example was soon followed by the well-to-do 
members with a startlingly variegated result. 

Mrs. Trevilian had talked about a cushion, but happen- 
ing to speak about it in the presence of Mrs. McTavish, 
whose husband was a ruling elder and magnified his 
office, it was brought informally before the session and 
frowned down,— Mr. McTavish calling attention point- 
edly to the woes pronounced upon those who sat at ease 
in Zion. 

Apparently these woes did not apply to the brethren, 
or else they were more willing to take chances, for in half 
the pews on the male side were spittoons, and in the other 
half there ought to have been. Attention was quite im- 
partially divided between these receptacles and the heads 
of the sermon. 

But it was not the position of the pulpit, startling as 
that was, nor the patent fact that she was in a community 
of tobacco-chewers, that made this church stand out in 
Miss Abby Cheever’s mind as belonging to a new order. 
It was the gallery in the rear, filled with dusky faces and 
white-turbaned heads. She had never seen negroes in a 
church before, and was unprepared for their presence. 
She had not supposed until this morning that any pro- 
vision was made for the spiritual needs of the brother in 
black. She thought she had studied all phases of this 
subject, but somehow this had escaped her. 

She stole surreptitious glances in that direction as they 
rose for prayer. It stirred her with a sense of infinite 
pathos to see those dull, patient faces as they listened to 
the man of God, and to hear their voices mingle with 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 39 


those of their masters in singing His praise. She com- 
pared them in her mind to the captives of Babylon, and 
wondered with a flood of pity how they could “ sing the 
Lord’s songs in a strange land.” She had forgotten that 
this to them, as to their masters, was home. 

Miss Abby was destined to a still greater surprise. 
Soon after the Trevilian party was seated, an aged negro, 
whose white wool formed a most striking contrast to his 
black skin, came in at the front door, and sat down in 
a split-bottomed chair just below the high pulpit. She 
had noticed that the others ascended to the gallery by an 
outside stairway. 

The old patriarch leaned forward comfortably on his 
staff, as though he belonged there. Miss Abby was watch- 
ing him breathlessly. Knowing the Southern intolerance 
of presumption on the part of the alien race, she expected 
nothing short of instant ejectment. Nobody seemed to 
take any notice of him, however, and she turned toward 
Mrs. Trevilian with a question in her eye. 

It is Captain Hart’s old Uncle Adam,” that lady whis« 
pered. He is so deaf that he can’t hear up in the gal- 
lery, and Mr. Singleton had that chair put right down 
under the pulpit for him. He loves to come.” 

This little incident and its very simple explanation made 
a deep impression on Miss Abby. She was getting to- 
gether a small stock of sensations that she hardly knew 
how to classify. They did not seem to belong in any 
of the prearranged cuddyholes of a somewhat immobile 
memory. 

The white faces around her were less absorbing, and 
yet they were not without a certain fascination from the 
fact that they were the faces of the masters of these 
slaves. One versed in types would have seen that the 
bulk of them were of the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock ; which 
had found its way hither via Ulster and the deep sea; 


40 


ORDER NO. 11 


which had hewed its path resistlessly through the hard- 
ships of pioneer life till it had come out at last where 
hewing was no longer imperative — with flocks and herds, 
and houses and lands, and peace and plenty around. 
But they were the faces of men who were ready to hew 
still at whatever stood in their way,— the men of whom 
Theodore Roosevelt said years ago in his keen analysis of 
the New West : 

There was little that was soft or outwardly attractive 
in their character; it was stern, rude, and hard, like the 
lives they led ; but it was the character of those who were 
every inch men, and who were Americans to the heart's 
core." 


Among them were faces of another type,— those which 
bespoke gentle blood, though not less red, whose owners 
spoke with more cultured phrase, and moved with the 
stately grace of “ gentlemen of the old school." The 
term has been scoffed at, and travestied, and misapplied 
until one hesitates to use it; but to those Missourians 
whose memories go back to the old slave-holding days, 
wherever they were spent, it stands always for the central 
figure in the neighborhood,— judge, or colonel, or major, 
as the case might be,— whose manners were a trifle ornate, 
perhaps, whose stateliness was sometimes oppressive to 
a ruder presence, but whose breeding never failed. And 
he— or his father— almost invariably came from Virginia. 
He, and such as he, formed the gentry of Jackson County, 
though they never even in thought called themselves by 
any such vainglorious name. 

As Miss Abby scanned the faces of the men who were 
to be her patrons for the coming year, she was startled to 
come upon one, well back against the wall, that seemed to 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 41 

' 

be staring straight at her. It was an evil face if there is 
anything in physiognomy. 

Miss Abby returned the gaze with one that might quell 
even the Scotch-Irish. But the man’s countenance did 
not change. Then she perceived that he was looking, not 
at her, but at Virginia, who sat beside her. 

She gave an instinctive glance at the girl. Virginia was 
utterly unconscious of the little by-play. At the moment 
that Miss Abby turned, she was lifting a smiling face up 
to Gordon, who had just whispered something to her. 
Miss Abby’s eyes went back to the man. He, too, had 
seen the radiance of Virginia’s upward glance. His gaze 
shifted to Gordon, and a sudden look of hate leaped to 
his eyes. Miss Abby felt as if she had been reading the 
first page of a story that might turn out badly. 

She wondered who the man was and why he looked at 
Virginia that way. 

All these observations had been quietly made before the 
services began. It was Miss Abby’s inherited custom to 
pay strict attention to the minister’s message. It was hard 
to do so here, she found. 

Down in the front corner of the church, on the female 
side, was a cedar bucket on a pine shelf. The bucket had 
a cocoanut gourd in it. To this fount of refreshment 
came, at all times through the sermon, lank mothers with 
crying babies and a small procession of assorted sizes at 
their heels. The clerical incumbent* of Hickory Grove 
church certainly had need of clear head and steady nerves, 
for the competition was varied and all-compelling. 

No sooner had the sermon got well under way than 
the children began to stray up and down the aisles, some- 
times attracted by the water-bucket, sometimes to the 
nearer contemplation of companions of kindred tastes a 
little way off. Miss Abby, accustomed to the decorum of 
a New England city church, found herself more absorbed 


42 ORDER NO. 11 

in the scene around her than in the minister’s points of 
doctrine. 

Just in front of the Trevilian pew were Mrs. Brooks and 
her small daughter, Pattie, flanked by a little negro girl, 
with puffy locks, who enjoyed the distinction of being in 
the family pew by virtue of having to '' tend to ” her 
Miss Pattie. Apparently the '' tending to ” was not very 
thorough, for her charge escaped her espionage, and saun- 
tered down toward the pulpit, looking back roguishly at 
her mother, who was making unavailing motions for her 
to return. Cassy was despatched to capture her, but 
Pattie, with a bubbling laugh that brought a grand- 
fatherly smile to more than one face, pressed on,— her 
dusky caretaker, who was only a few years older, fol- 
lowing. 

Pattie seated herself on the top step leading to the pul- 
pit, and Cass— as was proper— took the step below. Then 
this reprehensible nurse showed her Miss Pattie the reti- 
cule of sweet cakes ” put in to break the fast on the 
way home, and Pattie decided that the time for refresh- 
ments was now. She took the bag, graciously gave a cake 
to Cass, and took one herself. 

The effect upon that congregation of youngsters was 
electrical. With a rising as spontaneous as that which 
lay behind the Children’s Crusade, they started. Pattie 
was soon surrounded by a throng of silent, hungry satel- 
lites who put their fingers in their mouths, but said never 
a word. But Pattie knew 1 Reaching down, she gener- 
ously handed each mute suppliant a cake. They dropped 
down below her on the steps, one by one, to rise again 
when that was gone and stand as before. 

Then Pattie began to look anxious. She investigated 
the bag, sized up her following, and prudently broke the 
remainder of the cakes in halves. A smile rippled over 
the feminine side of the house at this exhibition of house- 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 43 


wifely caution, there was a giggle from Sallie, and Mr. 
Singleton wondered what was going on down below. 

He had not time to investigate, however, for at this 
moment a barefooted little urchin on the other side began 
to straggle near the pulpit. Mr. Singleton saw his ap- 
proach with dismay, while Virginia and Gordon ex- 
changed amused glances. It was little Tommy Trawles, 
who feared neither God nor Mr. McTavish, and least of 
all the kindly minister. 

Tommy mounted the steps, and Mr. Singleton invol- 
untarily put out his hand to ward off the attack. Tommy 
seized it promptly, and tugged at it to secure a hearing. 

“ Mithter Thingleton 1 ’’ 

The beleaguered minister gently extricated himself 
from Tommy’s grasp and patted him on the head, trying 
hard to hold on to the heads of his discourse. He began 
to realize the penalties of a man’s making himself too 
friendly in his parish. 

But young Trawles was of a persevering turn of mind. 
He caught the tortured ecclesiastic (who was rosily con- 
scious that Virginia Trevilian was smothering a laugh) 
by the coat-tail, and held on till he had told his tale of woe 
in a shrill, childish treble that reached all but the dull ears 
of Uncle Adam below : 

Mithter Thingleton ! I got a thore toe ! ” 

There was a moment in which even the elders lost the 
connection. Then Mr. Trawles, Sr., who ought to have 
been on duty long ago, reached for the culprit, and the 
episode was closed — behind the house. 

Miss Abby was not able to recall quite all the heads of 
the sermon when she got home, but she found herself the 
possessor of some very new and distinct impressions, for 
all that. 

Mrs. Trevilian took the opportunity after church, while 
the horses were being hitched up, to introduce her to the 


44 


ORDER NO. 11 


ladies whose children she would have in school. It was 
the hour when the informal reception was always held. 
As the dark-hued charioteers also took this time for a 
pleasant exchange of civilities, and nobody in the section 
ever hurried, the occasion was sometimes prolonged until 
the dark suspicion arose in the minds of the ungodly that 
the social features of Hickory Grove church rivaled in 
importance the spiritual. 

There was a pleasant little coterie of kindred spirits on 
Grand Prairie at that time, such as may often be found 
in pioneer communities where a few families constitute 
the Brahman class. These were the ones who were gath- 
ering around Miss Abby now— representative people of 
the neighborhood. To the outskirts of this group came a 
man and woman who had watched from afar the gather- 
ing of this little company, and after a few words of con- 
sultation had walked resolutely across to join it. 

They stood at Mrs. Trevilian’s back, but in full sight of 
Miss Nannie and the new teacher. A very casual ob- 
server could have seen that they had come for the express 
purpose of being presented, but they were standing where 
Mrs. Trevilian could not see them, and Miss Nannie ig- 
nored their presence beyond a bow. They waited a few 
moments, listening to the lively conversation with an evi- 
dent sense of being on the outside, and then turned ab- 
ruptly and walked off. Miss Abby’s eyes followed them. 
The woman was saying something in a low, excited tone, 
and the man’s face was black. 

Just then Mr. Singleton was brought up, and Dr. Lay 
and some of the other gentlemen, and she lost the dis- 
gruntled couple. 

Miss Abby was not a little surprised to find cultured 
speech and easy manners among the ladies to whom she 
was introduced, her mind being naturally a little preju- 
diced against border ruffians.” Unconsciously, she had 


A STRONGHOLD OF ORTHODOXY 45 


expected to find the term more technically descmptive than 
it seemed to be. 

However, she met all their frank, cordial advances in 
the same spirit, so far as in her lay,— which, it must be 
confessed, was not very far; for she was incased in 
the slight, impervious shell of New England reserve, 
which they tried to get through— and couldn’t; which 
she tried to throw off— and could n’t. But they found 
her ladylike, and that was the main thing ; and she 
found that their sentences would parse, which was what 
she had been uneasy about ; and so they got along. It is, 
perhaps, too much to expect that two sections as far apart 
in distance and sympathy as were Massachusetts and Mis- 
souri in that particular decade would do more than this. 

Gordon,” said Mrs. Trevilian, as he helped her into 
the carriage, you and Sallie come home with us to din- 
ner. Aunt Viny is preparing for eight or ten, and we ’ve 
nobody but Mr. Singleton and Mr. Whalen. Mrs. Wha- 
len is down in Lafayette.” 

Thank you, m’m. I believe I will. There are some 
things I want to talk over with Beverly before we go, and 
Sallie is always ready.” 

A few moments later he was riding down the road 
(very, very slowly, so that the riding-skirt would not get 
splashed), talking some of them over with Beverly’s 
sister. 

On the way home the Trevilians were discussing the peo- 
ple Miss Abby had met. 

'' Who were the lady and gentleman that came up and 
then went away without being introduced ? ” asked Miss 
Abby. 

‘‘ I don’t know,” said Mrs. Trevilian, in surprise. ‘‘ Did 
anybody do that ? I did n’t see them. Do you know who 
it was. Nan? ” 


46 


ORDER NO. 11 


“Yes/' returned Miss Nannie, composedly. “I saw 
them. It was the Tigermans." 

“ Why did n’t you introduce them? ” 

“ I did n’t want to.” 

“ Why, Nan! ” 

“ Sister Bettie,you know the Tigermans had no business 
popping themselves up there to be introduced 1 They have 
no children old enough to go to school. And they are not 
friends of ours. They came because they saw other peo- 
ple doing it, and they wanted to push themselves in — 
nothing else in the world ! ” 

“ Oh, well, that kind of people I like to be specially 
polite to.” 

“ And that kind of people I like to sit down on ! ” said 
Miss Nannie. “ Besides, I don’t want Miss Abby to take 
her opinion of the neighborhood from the Tigermans. 
They don’t belong here, anyway.” 

It seemed rather strange to the New England teacher 
that everybody called her “ Miss Abby.” It seemed to be 
the way of the country. 

“ But, Nan, they will be sure to take offense.” 

“Of course!” said Miss Nannie, without much con- 
cern of soul. “ The Tigermans always take offense. 
They are that kind of people 1 ” 


CHAPTER V 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 

W HEN they sat down to the table, Miss Abby gave 
an inward, gasp at its prodigality. There was a 
turkey at one end ; a baked ham, of the vintage of three 
years ago, at the other ; a pair of ducks under “ blankets 
of flaky pie-crust midway of the table before Beverly ; and, 
to balance it, a chicken-pie. It seemed to her like a veri- 
table slaughter of the innocents. And as to the con- 
comitants ! — Miss Abby counted up to nine different vege- 
tables and then stopped. Why, there was enough on that 
table to last an economical family for weeks ! 

While she was making this swift mental inventory. 
Colonel Trevilian and Beverly had fallen upon the fowls 
with deft hands, pink slices were issuing from under 
Mrs. Trevilian’s sharp knife, and the girls were rallying 
Mr. Singleton on his encounter with Tommy Trawles. 

‘‘ I really thought for a while that Tommy was coming 
out ahead, Mr. Singleton,’’ laughed Virginia. 

'' Oh, he did— he did, undoubtedly. I am very sure 
none of you youngsters remember any of my points as 
well as you remember his. Tommy certainly has one 
qualification of a pulpit orator— he makes himself under- 
stood.” 

‘‘ Yes, he does n’t lack clearness— or force,” said Mrs. 
Trevilian. 

'‘Nor pertinacity in holding to his point of view,” 
added Gordon. 

“ And he carries his audience with him,” Beverly put 
in, cutting carefully into the “ blanket.” 

47 


48 


ORDER NO. 11 


'' Quite true, Beverly ; quite true. I feel very certain 
that nobody in that church followed me, while Tommy 
was in competition, but old Uncle Adam. I know I did n't 
follow myself. My memory slipped a cog just as Tommy 
announced his complaint, and you were out of church five 
minutes too soon in consequence. I 'll get that five 
minutes back on you some day, Beverly." 

The table grew hilarious at the remembrance of the 
scene, and the jests flew thick and fast, Sunday as it was. 
When they had laughed themselves out, and had settled 
down to the discussion of prospective patrons and pupils. 
Miss Abby asked : 

Who was the sweet-looking girl that sat in front of 
you, Miss Trevilian, — the one with the very fair com- 
plexion and golden hair ? I think I noticed that she went 
out with an elderly man. She looks as if she might be one 
that would belong to me when school begins." 

It was Lois Chandler and her father. She is a pretty 
girl. It seems to me she gets prettier all the time. I could 
hardly keep my eyes off her to-day. Mr. Singleton, 
after all, there is nothing in the world so beautiful as 
fresh, blooming young girls, is there ? " . 

'' Nothing in the world. Miss Nannie," he said, with a 
significant glance that took in the auburn head and the 
dark one opposite~he had long been shepherd of this 
flock ; '' and "—sobered suddenly—'' sometimes nothing 
so pathetic. They know so little of what is before them— 
so little of the pitfalls for unwary feet. . . . There is 
something about Lois Chandler's position among us that 
appeals to me." 

" What, Mr. Singleton ? " asked Virginia, in surprise. 

" Well, my child,"— he stirred his coffee in a contem- 
plative mood, as if he saw the blonde-haired girl and her 
past and future in its depths,—" principally the thing 
that can never come to you and Sallie— her isolation and 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


49 


the lonely way in which she has been raised. It is not a 
good thing, Mrs. Trevilian,” — forgetting that he was ad- 
dressing his remarks to Virginia,—'' for a young girl to be 
raised by a man, and especially an old man.'' 

" And more especially an old crank ! " said Miss Nan- 
nie in a swift aside to Beverly, who sat next to her. But 
Beverly's eyes were on his father, who had spoken be- 
fore Mrs. Trevilian could reply. 

" I will answer that, Mr. Singleton," he said, with kin- 
dling eyes. " One who has been reared without the coun- 
sels of a mother such as Sallie and Virginia have, has 
missed God's best gift to a child." 

Mrs. Trevilian's color rose, and she acknowledged the 
compliment by a deprecatory smile. " Lois is to be 
pitied," she said softly, " in that she is motherless. And 
she seems to be a sweet, simple-hearted child." 

Beverly and Gordon were both looking straight into 
their plates. Virginia looked to see, and so did Sallie. 

" Mr. Singleton, did you ever hear of our first acquain- 
tance with old man Chandler? " asked Miss Nannie. The 
conversation seemed to be taking rather a sentimental 
turn. " Get brother William to tell you about it." 

" It 's no story of mine," declared the Colonel. " I 
never have seen any special joke in it." 

" Brother William, that is because it is on you. Peo- 
ple never can see a point that is coming straight toward 
them as well as when they are a little at one side — in other 
words, when it is going toward somebody else." 

" What is it. Miss Nannie? " inquired Mr. Whalen. 

" Well, then : when the Chandlers first came here 
they settled on a poor little place down on the creek, and 
they had no orchard. We had plenty of fruit that fall, so 
brother William said that he thought he would send 
them over a few barrels of Genitins. But before he got 
at it, here came the Chandler boy one day with a meal- 

4 


50 


ORDER NO. 11 


sack and fifteen cents to buy a peck of apples— a peck, I 
want you to understand, Mr. Singleton. Of course bro- 
ther William filled up the bag, and told the boy to tell his 
father he never sold fruit to a neighbor, but to send over 
and get all he wanted. Well, in about fifteen minutes 
here came the boy back with the apples and the message, 
rather stiffly delivered, that Mr. Chandler never begged 
fruit or anything else. And that was the beginning of 
the intimacy between the two families.’’ 

In the laugh that followed, Beverly took part with the 
rest, but it was in a perfunctory sort of way. He had 
often heard this story, and joined in harmless mirth at the 
old man’s expense ; but to-day, for some reason, it rasped 
his nerves to have old man Chandler’s penurious- 
ness impaled upon the point of Miss Nannie’s sarcasm 
and held up to ridicule. It was a pitiful thing for a girl 
to have been so reared, as Mr. Singleton had said. He 
felt his heart warm to the minister. If Lois could only 
have had such influences around her as Sallie and Vir- 
ginia had had,— he never had realized before how much 
that all was to a girl,— she might be— 

'' Beverly, I have asked you a question three times, and 
you have n’t heard a word I ’ve said ! ” 

I beg your pardon, Sallie ! I ’m getting very deaf in 
that ear. Ask me once more, and I ’ll turn the other.” 
And Sallie had no further cause to complain. 

And what was there wrong about his wanting to buy 
the peck of apples ? ” asked Miss Abby, leaning past the 
two and speaking with a puzzled air. It seemed to her 
that she had missed the point. 

'‘Oh, nothing!” returned Miss Nannie; "nothing at 
all I Only men in this part of the country don’t buy apples 
that way, and don’t sell them at all unless they have a 
wagon-load or so.” 

" I want to know ! ” said Miss Abby. 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 51 

And simultaneously four pairs of young eyes sought 
the turkey on their plates. 

'' He ’s peculiar/' said Colonel Trevilian. He has n't 
a particle of tact. You remember, Mr. Whalen, his tak- 
ing Mr. Pasco to task about leaving his machinery out 
in the field?— told him to his face that it was shiftless- 
shiftless in the extreme, was the way he put it. You know 
Pasco prides himself on his farming." 

That was rather amusing," replied Mr. Whalen, with 
a chuckle ; '' especially considering the two farmers, 
Colonel." 

'' Yes, sir, yes." And they laughed heartily. They 
did not explain the difference, but Miss Abby rightly 
conjectured that one was successful, and the other was 
not. 

When there was a moment of silence, she broke it by 
asking, with pedagogic directness : 

'' And don't you think it is shiftless to leave machinery 
out?" 

They found later that she never failed to have a ques- 
tion or a remark to drop into the conversation when it be- 
gan to bubble. They were always eminently practical and 
to the point, but they never failed to precipitate the so- 
lution. 

After dinner the young people went out to the school- 
house, which had been treated to a fresh coat of white- 
wash and a new blackboard in honor of Miss Abby. Sal- 
lie opened her eyes at seeing on the table the hour-glass 
and the big globe that had never before left Colonel Tre- 
vilian's office. He had himself transferred them to the 
school-house, with a natural desire to let the new teacher 
from the North see that they were quite up to date on the 
border in the matter of equipment. 

They dropped into the same seats they used to occupy 


52 


ORDER NO. 11 


— Sallie and Virginia together, with Gordon behind them 
and Beverly alone on the other side. 

Sallie, come over here ! I ’m lonesome.’’ 

A-ha ! you miss the young lady with the golden hair, 
do you ? ” 

'' Yes,” replied Beverly. '' And in default of her, I ’ll 
take the young lady with the r — auburn hair. No ! Don’t 
sit in front of me. Sit by me. It is your last chance. 
. . . You won’t, won’t you? ” 

He gave his desk a whirl, and Sallie went shrieking 
into the aisle, for the Trevilian school-house seats were 
rude wooden ones, each a part of the desk behind, and 
not screwed down. The occupants were thus entirely at 
the mercy of their neighbors in the rear, and sometimes 
it had proved the tender mercies of the wicked. They 
would find themselves often, in the midst of study, unex- 
pectedly swept into the aisle by impatient or mischievous 
hands, and, as in the instinctive working of that law 
which is. said to be nature’s very first they invariably 
clutched the desk in front as they went, the hapless pos- 
sessor of that in turn would be thrust into the opposite 
aisle. So those old desks kept up a zigzag that varied the 
monotony of school life immensely. 

It had been an old trick of Beverly’s to set that ball 
rolling. He played the trick once too often, though ; for 
Miss Lavinia saw him, and the next day the seats were 
changed, the boys now alternating with the girls, who 
w^ould presumably keep them straight. This brought Vir- 
ginia and Sallie in front of Gordon, and Beverly on the 
other side, behind a girl with flowing yellow hair, who 
always sat alone. 

Nobody in the back of the room seemed to mind the 
change, — and Beverly least of all. If Miss Lavinia had 
meant this for a punishment, she had underestimated the 
age of her pupils. Beverly had never been so near the 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


53 


yellow-haired girl before. How like a rose-leaf her cheek 
was I And her hair was like spun gold ! Why did n’t the 
girls play with her, he wondered, or choose her in the 
spelling-match. 

What are you girls going to study ? ” asked Gordon 
when quiet was restored and Sallie had capitulated by 
sitting beside Beverly. 

“ Paley’s ' Natural Theology,’ Alexander’s ' Evidences 
of Christianity,’ and somebody’s ‘ Mental Philosophy ’ — 
I forget whose.” 

Whew-w-w ! ” 

There was a wailing whistle. Then Beverly rose, 
placed his hand on his heart, and made a low bow— first 
to one, and then to the other. 

Ladies, you have made a wise choice ! These studies 
will fit you most beautifully for social life in Richmond 
and Lexington, where, I understand, you expect to shine 
next year. But ’’—with anxious inquiry— “ are you in 
doubt about Christianity, may I ask ? ” 

Oh, brother ! All the girls study ^ Evidences of Chris- 
tianity ’ in their senior year ; and, I thank you, we are 
seniors, if we don't go to college, for next year we stop.” 

Ah ! and who are the other seniors that next year 
are going to stop ? ” 

“ There ’s nobody but Sallie and Mollie Driscoll and 
myself, of the girls.” 

'' By the way,” said Gordon, does anybody ever see 
anything of Rene Taggart nowadays?” and there was a 
peal of laughter without apparent cause. 

I ’m like you, Gordon. I never hear of Mollie Dris- 
coll without thinking of Rene Taggart. Did n’t she give 
it to Mollie that day! Je-wfmy! I bet Mollie never has 
thrown it up to another girl that she was poor white 
folks!” 

It served her right,” said Gordon, sternly. She 


54 


ORDER NO. 11 


had no business to say it. It changed that chiid’st 
whole life. She was a bright little thing, if she was a 
Taggart, and she was trying so hard to be like the rest of 
you girls and make something of herself.’’ 

'' It was too bad,” said Virginia. '' She never has been 
to school a day since.” 

You made a friend that day, Gordon,” said Beverly. 

They say the Taggarts never forget.” 

'' I ’m thinking I made an enemy, too,” Gordon returned 
with a smile. ‘‘ Mollie Driscoll will hardly speak to me 
yet. If she ever gets a chance to do me a bad turn—” 

But was n’t Rene game 1 ” interrupted Beverly, with 
reminiscent admiration. She never shed a tear through 
the whole thing, while Mollie blubbered like a baby.” 

Which was all he knew about it. The haw-bush could 
have told a different tale. It was a pitiful little story — for 
all their merriment over it — and is worth telling, perhaps, 
if only to show how quickly a flickering flame of aspira- 
tion can be put out. Then, too, it may have been the 
primal cause of something that happened one dark night 
on Grand Prairie long afterward. Perhaps nobody ever 
connected the two, but the hidden springs of life some- 
times lie very far from the spot where they emerge as 
deeds. 

Rene had been one of the few creek folks ” that pa- 
tronized the Trevilian school, and she had never gone 
until that time four years ago — the last year before the 
boys went away to college. She had gone steadily then 
until Mollie Driscoll told her one day that she was poor 
white folks.” 

“ I dare you to say that again ! ” Rene had challenged, 
with eyes flashing and fingers that tingled for the touch 
of hair. 

And Mollie could not take a dare. There was where 
the trouble came in. 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


55 


It ’s good enough for you, Mollie Driscoll ! ’’ Gordon 
Lay had said indignantly when the girl who was n’t 

poor white folks ” emerged, with bleeding nose and di- 
sheveled hair and garments that told of the conflict, from 
under the hands of the one who was. “ You had no busi- 
ness to say it ! ” 

Rene was standing motionless, her nostrils dilated, her 
breath coming hard. She was watching every movement 
of her antagonist like a cat ready to spring. 

'' I ’ll say it if I want to,” blubbered Mollie, goaded past 
common prudence by Gordon’s scorn. It ’s so, any- 
way ! ” 

And in an instant the battle was on again. 

They were parted at last, the girls taking Mollie to the 
pump, while Rene with white face and blazing eyes stood 
facing Miss Lavinia. 

It was n’t her fault. Miss Lavinia,” Gordon had has- 
tened to say. Mollie made her do it. I saw the whole 
thing.” 

He was almost a man in size then, though he was not 
much over sixteen, and she was a child of thirteen. He 
stooped and brushed the dust from her dress. Love of 
fair play had always been strong in Gordon. 

Go to your seat, Irene,” Miss Lavinia had said, 
not unkindly, I will talk with you about this after 
school.” 

She did not have the opportunity. Rene walked 
straight into the school-room, packed up her belongings, 
and vaulted through the window before Miss Lavinia had 
finished hearing the story from the excited children.. 
Her school-days were over. 

The girl’s way home lay through the pasture back of 
the house which led down to the creek. She had looked 
neither to the right nor the left until she was safe behind 
the shelter of a clump of haw-bushes. Then she threw 


56 


ORDER NO. 11 


herself on the ground, and wept it out in an agony of hu* 
miliation and fierce grief and anger. 

They do not know the human heart who speak lightly 
of childish sorrows. It is true they are evanescent, but for 
intensity of suffering and blackness of despair there is 
nothing in later years to approach them. When time has 
taught us the truth, we know that nothing lasts ; but at 
thirteen we are sure that we will stagger under this load 
forever. Poor Rene! By the time she had reached the 
sobbing stage, she saw that the case was quite hopeless. 
She could never, never go back. 

The neighborhood had wondered a little when she 
started, in the first place. It was something new for a 
Taggart to show any desire to climb— anything less ma- 
terial, at any rate, than the creek banks and the walnut- 
trees. They did this fearlessly enough, girl and boys 
alike; but otherwise the ways of the Taggarts were usu- 
ally down. 

The child had had one heavenly glimpse of a different 
life during those months at the Keswick school. She 
found herself trying to be like the rest. She braided her 
hair as Virginia did, and when Sallie Devereau came out 
one day in hoops, Rene got a grape-vine and ran it in the 
hem of her petticoat. It was rather stiff and thumped a 
good deal when she sat down, but it was much better than 
no hoops, she thought. 

That there was a difference between her and the rest 
of the girls Rene saw all too plainly. She did not try to 
bridge the gulf, and neither, it must be confessed, did 
they— being full of themselves and the unconscious self- 
ishness of youth. 

There had been one day, though, when she had seemed 
just like the rest— a day that stood out in her memory as 
the one in which for one brief space she entered paradise. 
It was the time they were playing plate,’’ and the boys, 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


57 


instigated by Gordon, had made her a “ belled’ Gordon 
had thought it was too bad for her to be so left out,— 
and the boys took their cue from him. She had never had 
such a heavenly time. 

The girl sobbing under the haw-bush was thinking of 
that day with the rest. And it was all over ! There was a 
fresh burst of weeping at that, and sobbing, and then the 
dull ache about the throat that we all can remember, no 
matter how far we have got from the haw-bush. But 
through the shame and the hurt and the despair— so 
strange a thing is a girl’s heart!— there had been a throb- 
bing note of joy. 

He stood up for me ! ” it said. '' Gordon stood up for 
me!” 

Poor Rene ! 

'' Virginia,” said Beverly in the first pause (for they had 
been full of laughter and chat while we have been follow- 
ing Rene’s little story), who was that fellow that stared 
you out of countenance in church to-day? The one that 
sat over by the wall.” 

Virginia looked annoyed. 

“ I suppose you mean that horrid old Emmons Baird. 
I hate that man ! He stares at me so that I always feel as 
if something was the matter with me — that my hair was 
coming down, or I had too much starch on my face, or 
something. I put my hand up a half-dozen times this 
morning to see if my hair-pins were coming out. Did 
you see anything wrong about me ? ” she demanded of 
Gordon, raising to him a face that Emmons Baird might 
well be forgiven for feasting his eyes upon. 

“ No,” he returned gravely, his lips twitching a little. 
“ I did n’t see anything wrong about you. I don’t see 
anything wrong now.” 

“ Well, if I were going to be here,” Beverly said sav- 


58 


ORDER NO. 11 


agely, I would make him understand that he had to 
look at old Mrs. McTavish next Sunday, or somebody 
else ! Who is he, anyway ? Has he come here lately ? ’’ 
He lives down here on the old Baskin place— he ’s 
nothing but a renter, they say. He does n’t look to me 
as if he ever ozvned anything, though I believe he did buy 
old Uncle Bob and Aunt Cindy at Mr. Baskin’s sale. 
There are two of these Bairds— this Emmons and another 
one named Jim.” 

“ Where did they come from ? ” 

'' They claim to be Virginians. But I don’t believe 
they ever set foot on Virginia soil, myself,” said this loyal 
namesake of the Old Dominion. This Emmons Baird 
was over here one day, and Aunt Nan says he got awfully 
tangled up in the counties.” 

Dreadful ! ” said Beverly, in mock consternation. “ I 
know that finished him with Aunt Nan. She thinks 
if a fellow can’t tell off the counties of Virginia as he 
would the multiplication-table he has pretty nearly lost his 
chance of being counted with the elect.” 

“ Well, not so bad as that, brother ; but certainly his 
chance of being numbered with the F. F. V.’s. That was 
the day Miss Tiny and Miss Tony were here, and Miss 
Tiny began to question him about the Bairds in Virginia 
that she had known. She seemed deeply impressed when 
he said he belonged to that family, but she lost her faith 
when he could n’t tell his grandmother’s name. She said 
to me, privately, after he was gone, ^ He may be all right, 
child, but I always have my doubts of a man that can’t 
tell his great-grandmother’s name before she was married. 
I do, indeed ! ’ ” 

There was hilarious laughter at this, for Virginia had 
the gift of mimicry, and Miss Tiny was a good subject. 

How long has he been here ? ” asked Gordon. He, 
too, felt an interest in the man which was antagonistic. 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


59 


“ They came here about a year and a half ago, I have 
heard father say, but I never saw them till last spring. 
Did you, Sallie ? There seems something mysterious about 
them. Father says they never went anywhere at all when 
they first came into the neighborhood, — not even to the 
store. They always sent old Uncle Bob. Lately they 
have been coming to church, and mother thinks v/e ought 
to speak to them and sort of encourage them.’’ 

It strikes me this one needs discouraging,” said 
Gordon. 

“ Oh, Gordon ! not about coming to church ! But I ’m 
not going to talk to him. He comes over here to see 
father sometimes, and we have to be polite to him. But 
I don’t like his looks myself.” 

Neither do I,” said Beverly, rising. You ’d better 
let mother do the encouraging. You study Christianity 
and let her practise it. Come on, folks ; let ’s all go down 
to the grape-vine tree.” 

As they were starting, Virginia heard her mother call- 
ing her. 

''' You-'3i\\ go on,” she said. “ I ’ll be there in a minute.” 

I ’ll wait for you here,” said Gordon. 

When she was gone he sat staring at the blank walls, 
which seemed blanker than ever, suddenly. There were 
no grateful green boards then for tired eyes to rest upon, 
no bright-tinted maps, no pictures to relieve the staring 
whiteness. 

None? 

Well, perhaps we might except the two great panels 
on the side, framed by the window-casings, to which Gor- 
don turned to-day, as he had so often done in the years 
gone by. There Nature hung each day a fresh canvas. 
On it were limitless expanses of shaded greens and gor- 
geous Western skies such as no lesser artist would dare to 
paint, and a restless ocean whose grassy billows rose and 


6o 


ORDER NO. 11 


fell with every passing breeze, and took on the shifting 
lights and shades and shimmer of the sea. 

There was no lack of variety in those paneled scenes, 
either in subject or coloring. Sometimes, as to-day, it was 
a pastoral in green ; sometimes, a landscape in sober 
browns, lit up by the scarlet of the sumac and the hick- 
ory’s gold ; some days the world was in a winding-sheet 
of white. 

There was so much more in the picture than met 
the eye. Gordon could see from where he sat the curling 
smoke of his own home, over there where the woods 
dipped down to the creek. He knew every foot of that 
creek bank. In the spring days he and Beverly, Virginia 
and Sallie, they four and no more,” used to scour those 
woods for red-buds and dogwood and service-berries, 
which they ate with endless discussions, that he smiled to 
recall, as to whether it was service or sarvice. 

Then there had been the earlier tramps which neces- 
sitated the girls wearing their '' gum-shoes,”— when the 
sap began to flow and the grape-vine’s blood must be 
caught in tin buckets to use later in the mysteries of the 
feminine shampoo. In the fall those old grape-vines en- 
ticed them again, and the boys climbed to perilous heights 
and threw down the luscious clusters into the girls’ out- 
stretched skirts, and they all sought the gnarled old trunk 
that had served them so well, and served them still, with 
outspread seats just large enough for four. 

There were pawpaws and black haws and hickory-nuts 
in those woods ; and later on, when the frost had laid its 
withering touch on all else, the defiant persimmon, which, 
like some hearts, needs this sharp touch to turn its acrid 
juices to sweet succulence and use; and the vicious little 
winter grapes, which even the frost could not more than 
half subdue, but which were vicious to the last, and puck- 
ered the mouth, and made one shut his eyes and shiver 


IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE 


6i 


and feel that he had suddenly developed mumps. All 
these Gordon saw in the picture. 

Over the rise, between Colonel Trevilian's and Dr. 
Lay’s, ran the road— the “ big road ” it was always called. 
It looked to-day like a tawny ribbon laid over that cloth 
of green. Sometimes it was lost for a space, but it would 
bob up again somewhere else, and the ox-teams that had 
been lost would emerge from the '' sink ” in which they 
had been swallowed up. 

The young man in the school-house was under Mem- 
ory’s spell. He almost expected to see the prairie-schooner 
with its tow-headed youngsters peering out from every 
opening, the household gods swinging below, and the sad- 
eyed yellow dog guarding them. This had been the su- 
preme excitement of their childish life. He could see 
once more the rising along the line of boys, and hear the 
thrilling whisper pass from one to another, Movers ! 
movers ! ” 

But the smile faded from his lips. Those old pictures 
had made his heart tender to-day. Would it ever again be 
just the same? A vague depression that he could not 
throw off had fallen ^ipon him. He rose and stood by 
the open window, drawing in a great breath. Would this 
cataclysm that his father feared for the country really 
come upon it ? They had had stirring times on the border 
already. Who was this mysterious avenger or assassin, or 
whatever he was, who had been dealing out death with 
such a relentless hand across the Kaw ? Suppose he should 
come over the line. He shivered. All he held dear was 
on this border, and he was leaving it. Then with sudden 
wrath he thought of the man who had dared to look at 
Virginia with covetous eyes that day. 

There was a step, a vision in the doorway, a voice, — 
and the sun shone. 

What are you looking at, Gordon ? ” 


62 


ORDER NO. 11 


'' The shadows.'' 

She stood beside him, and together they looked out 
over the peaceful scene— the shady vales, the uplands 
basking in the sunshine, the floating fleecy clouds that 
cast their shadows on meadows primeval where cattle 
stood knee-deep in the lush grass and ate their fill — 
shadows that shifted and darkened and melted away as 
they looked— that dropped down here, and lifted there, 
and chased each other over the sun-kissed plain till it 
seemed that they were playing hide-and-seek with the 
very god of day. 

Gordon had called Virginia's attention to this panorama 
of cloud shadows one day, long years ago, as they stood 
together at this very window. After that they somehow 
felt that it was theirs by right of discovery. They never 
spoke of it to anybody else; they kept it to themselves — 
one of Nature's sweet secrets that she had told to them 
alone. To-day, as they stood side by side and watched it 
for the last time, their souls were flooded with the sweet 
ecstasy of it all, and the haunting, elusive undertone of 
sadness that always comes with Nature's masterpieces. 

Ah, the beautiful play of lights and shades on virgin 
meadows ! 


CHAPTER VI 


TWO AND TWO ARE FIVE 


HE boys were off bright and early the next morning 



i —Virginia and Sallie going with them in the car- 
riage, under Uncle Reuben’s guardianship, as far as the 
landing. 

Colonel Trevilian had intended going too on his gray 
horse, but at the last moment he was called away on ur- 
gent business in another direction. There seemed likely 
to be a hitch in the plans for a while, but Virginia had 
pleaded : 

'' Oh, mother ! it ’s all planned ! and Sallie will be so 
disappointed ! and so will Matt Delano, for we were going 
to stop there for dinner, and take her down to the boat 
with us. Now, mother, please! Uncle Reuben will take 
good care of us. Father!” 

That last appeal won the day, as it had since she was 
old enough to put her arms around his neck and say in 
just this tone, Now, fa-ver! ” 

'' Oh, yes, my dear, I think they may as well go. Mr. 
Delano will ride down from Independence to the boat 
with them.” 

And Virginia flew up-stairs to get ready. 

Miss Abby was a good deal scandalized— on two 
counts : First, they would be absent from the opening of 
school, which seemed to her far more important than any 
mere leave-taking; and, second, they would have to ride 
back all that distance alone with this old negro. She 
spoke of this to Miss Nannie. 


64 


ORDER NO. 11 


“ Afraid to have them go with Uncle Reuben ! ex- 
claimed Miss Nannie. '' Why, he is as trustworthy as 
the Apostle Paul ! He has driven these children around 
ever since they were born, and their father and grand- 
father before them. Mercy ! . , . Uncle Reuben ! '' 

The ride to Independence was a long one, but it seemed 
all too short to-day. It was likely to be the last one they 
would take together for a good while. 

The roads had dried up, the day was fine, and Sallie 
was never in higher spirits,— which is saying a great deal, 
for Sallie's spirits were of the effervescing type. She and 
Beverly kept things going; and it was well they did, for 
Gordon was rather quiet and Virginia’s gaiety inter- 
mittent. 

Once Sallie got out to get some flowers, of which the 
prairie was full, and Beverly followed her to see that she 
did not get left, he said, or snake-bitten, and they could 
hear her shrieks as he laid this danger forcibly before her. 
Gordon moved across to the place beside Virginia. But 
when he was there and the opportunity had come for con- 
fidential talk he could think of nothing but common- 
places to say— and the time so short! When the train is 
coming and we stand on the platform and know that in 
a moment our chance will be gone, and that when it is we 
shall think of a hundred things that we wanted to say, 
our brains seem palsied and all we can think of is “ Be 
sure to write ” and '' Did you get everything? ” 

Gordon could not tell her all the things that clamored 
for utterance. There was not time, and this was not the 
place. Besides, he had but little of the small change of 
conversation, and when he thought of nothing worth 
while to say, said it. A strange constraint had fallen upon 
Virginia too, and when they did talk it did not seem alto- 
gether satisfactory 


TWO AND TWO ARE FIVE 65 


Outside, on the prairie, Beverly was saying, '' Of course 
you ’ll write to me, Sallie ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Sallie returned teasingly ; you write 
to me, and maybe I ’ll answer.” 

Humph! Maybe I ’ll write! ” said Beverly. 

Sallie laughed and then said seriously, '' Beverly Tre- 
vilian, you know you don’t care for my letters. You 
would rather have two pages from Lois Chandler than ten 
from me. Now, honest — wouldn’t you?” 

Beverly caught her hands and held them. 

“ Sallie,” he said solemnly, let me look into your eyes. 
I think I caught the reflection of the prairie — just the 
least little speck of it.” 

But Sallie had turned her eyes away. 

‘‘ Everybody can see it but Virginia,” she said. 

“ Sallie, you are talking nonsense ! What could Lois 
Chandler ever be to me ? ” He spoke impatiently, but as 
if his impatience were more at a situation than at her. 

'' I ’m sure she ’s a very nice girl,” said Sallie, with a 
woman’s contrariety. Then she laughed. “ Beverly, it is 
so funny ! Virginia thinks Gordon likes Lois. And I 
half-way think so myself.” 

He turned quickly toward her. You do ! Pshaw 1 ” 

'' Wellj I said half-way. You need n’t look at me like 
that!” 

When they reached the carriage, which had stopped at 
their call, Gordon kept his seat. 

“ Sallie, you are not old enough to have conscientious 
scruples about riding backward, are you ? ” He found his 
place satisfactory, at any rate. 

“ Gordon, I am devoted to you. I would strangle any 
scruple that would not give you the opportunity of looking 
forward,” she said, settling herself beside Beverly. 

At Independence they had a disappointment. Matt De- 
lano had other company and was not able to go down to 
5 


66 


ORDER NO. 11 


the boat with them ; but Mr. Delano dropped everything to 
ride down with them on horseback and see the boys off, 
as Colonel Trevilian had requested. 

Their good-bys were spoken at the gangway,— Gor- 
don whispering hurriedly as he held her hand, Will you 
write to me, Virge?’' and Virginia answering quietly, 
‘‘Yes.’’ Sallie threw parting jests to the last. Then the 
plank was drawn in, the boys disappeared and reappeared 
on the guards, the churning of brown waters began, hats 
were lifted from two handsome heads, two white hands 
were waved from the shore, there was a hearty “ Good 
luck to you, boys ! ’’—and they were off. 

The girls did not look at each other till they had said 
good-by to Mr. Delano and were in the carriage. As 
they started, Virginia leaned forward to give some direc- 
tion to Uncle Reuben. When she turned toward her 
friend, a shocked expression came over her face. 

“ Why, Sallie ! ” she cried. “ Sallie ! ” 

For Sallie was lying in an ignominious heap in the 
corner of the carriage, shaken with sobs. 

“ I know just how you feel,” said Virginia, with con- 
summate tact, and an ominous heaving of her own breast. 
“ I feel that same way about brother, and Gordon is just 
like a brother to you.” 

On the Thomas H. Benton the two young men were stow- 
ing away their belongings in their state-rooms and prepar- 
ing for the journey, which, even with clear sailing, would 
be like an ocean passage of to-day for length. If they 
struck a sand-bar there was no telling when it would 
end. 

They sat out late that night on the guards, watching 
the endless processions of trees — willows and cotton- 
woods and sycamores— pass by in ghostly file, dreaming 
young men’s dreams of the future, and planning their 


TWO AND TWO ARE FIVE 67 


lives with as much confidence as if there were no unknown 
factors to deal with. 

You will get through in two years Beverly was 
mying. 

Yes,’’ 

And then?” . 

“ Well, I rather think I ’ll settle in Kansas City, if it is 
large enough by that time to support another physician. 
Father thinks it is going to make quite a town. You 
never had any leaning toward medicine.” 

No, sir. When I come back for good, it will be to 
take up life at Keswick. I think it would break father’s 
heart if I should do anything else. You see, the Tre- 
vilians have been planters in Virginia from time imme- 
morial, and I suppose I have a sort of inherited love of 
the soil. I ’m going to be a planter in Missouri, only it 
won’t be tobacco alone that I ’ll plant, and I will probably 
be called by the less high-sounding name of farmer. Still, 
with the two thousand acres that will be mine some day, 
I think I might almost be called a planter.” 

It was of their prospects they talked, of establishing 
themselves, of prosaic plans for making a livelihood; 
but they were verging upon manhood’s estate, and who 
can doubt that mingled with their thoughts of drugs and 
crops were dreams of fair faces and bright eyes? Eden 
was incomplete until woman came. She brought trouble 
with her, it is true, as she has brought it ever since ; but 
she was fair to look upon, and from that time to this, 
when Adam’s sons have planted them gardens they have 
not had the resolution to shut her out. 

So Gordon’s thoughts were of Virginia, and the heir 
of Keswick’s with — 

“ Beverly,” said Gordon, breaking a silence that had 
lasted long, “ you placed me in a very uncomfortable po- 
sition the other day. Did you know it ? ” 


68 


ORDER NO. 11 


No.’’ Beverly lifted his eyes from the contemplation 
of the flashing spray of the side-wheel to look in genuine 
surprise at his companion. When ? ” 

“ The day you left Virginia thinking I had been walk- 
ing dov/n in the woods with Lois Chandler. She—” 

“ Was n’t that funny ! ” broke in Beverly, with a laugh. 
'' Do you know, I believe she had a sort of suspicion that 
she was wrong, for she asked me at supper-time where I 
was that morning.” 

“What did you tell her?” 

“ Told her I was out hunting, as I was. She thought it 
took me all morning to get those few prairie-chickens, I 
suppose.” And he laughed again. 

“ I don’t see anything very funny about it,” Gordon 
said with uncompromising gravity. “ I wish you would 
look at it seriously. I could n’t tell her the truth, because 
I had promised you not to, but I tell you I did n’t like 
the position it placed me in.” 

“ Oh,” said Beverly, lightly, “ she ’ll never think of it 
again.” 

“ She will think of it. She asked me again to-day, when 
you and Sallie were getting the flowers, if it was Lois I 
was walking with that morning. The very fact that I 
don’t tell her naturally makes her think there ’s something 
wrong— something I ’m keeping back. ... I think you 
ought to have told her.” 

“ Oh, Gordon, you don’t know what wrath I would 
have brought down on my poor head. Father won’t hear 
to my looking at a girl who has n’t a pedigree as long 
as the moral law— and mother is n’t much better ! I 
would n’t quite say that they think it a crime for a person 
not to have a grandfather and a great-grandfather— per- 
haps not even a misdemeanor— but an indiscretion, cer- 
tainly. These old Virginia families have tar-bucket 
memories,— and they always want to look it up in the 


TWO AND TWO ARE FIVE 69 


herd-book. Confound it ! why is it that the prettiest girls 
never had any pedigree ? And the ugly ones ! There ’s 
Mollie Driscoll, now. Counts back to the time of the 
flood,— a little before, I believe,— and who would ever 
want to go with Mollie Driscoll ! Let her keep the com- 
pany of her antediluvian ancestors, I say ! ’’ 

Gordon was not to be diverted. “ I wish you would 
absolve me from my promise,’' he said soberly. '' I ought 
never to have made it, in the first place.” 

“ No, sir ! ” Beverly shook his head in a tantalizing 
way, but there was an undercurrent of purpose beneath 
the light words. '' I hold you to that promise. You said, 
upon honor, that you would never tell until I said you 
might, and I won’t release you from it. You are never 
to let on in any manner that I have ever been in the habit 
of going down to old man Chandler’s. You ’ve prom- 
ised! . . . Besides, Gordon,” he continued in expostu- 
lation, “ you know it is all in fun. There can never be 
anything serious between Lois Chandler and me! Why, 
it is ridiculous ! ” 

Gordon Lay pushed his chair back and stood up as if 
to end the conversation. 

“ Then drop it ! ” he said roughly. And drop it now 1 
If you are not in earnest, stand aside and let some honest 
fellow go in that is! An aflfair of this sort, that can 
neither be carried on in the open nor be treated seriously, 
will lead to no good.” 

He left him as abruptly as he had spoken. It was the 
nearest approach to a quarrel the two had ever had. 

Beverly turned and looked after him — amazement in 
every feature. “Well, by Jove!” he said, “I half-way 
believe Sallie is right! Who is the honest fellow that 
wants to go in in earnest ? . . . Can it be himself ? ” 

He sat there late into the night, looking at the white 
spray as it fell from the wheel, and thinking— no, not 


70 


ORDER NO. 11 


quite thinking, but letting his thoughts stray whitherso- 
ever they would. And they strayed oftenest to the humble 
house where sweet-faced Lois Chandler lived alone with 
her peculiar father. The girl was wonderfully pretty. 
And she was good too. If she only had a pedigree ! . . . 
The white spray still dashed from the wheel. There was 
a fascination in watching it. How pure it was ! How 
it flashed in the starlight! And how irretrievably it was 
lost when it touched the black vortex below 1 

'' I don’t know but he is right,” he thought. I ’m 
glad I am going away. She ’ll forget me before I get 
back, and maybe I 'll forget her— I hope so, anyway.” 

And then a vision flitted before him of Lois Chandler’s 
blue eyes, in which there had been just a hint of tears 
when he saw them last; and the golden hair vfliich fell 
about her face in such profusion and had somehow en- 
meshed itself about his heart ; and the soft cheek that was 
like a rose-leaf ; — and he was not sure that he wanted to 
be quite forgotten, after all. 


CHAPTER VII 


MISS ABBY ON DOMESTIC ECONOMY 

I T was November— the season when the wise woman 
who looketh well to the ways of her household, and is 
not afraid of the snow, must be up and doing in old Mis- 
souri, for that household was literally to be clothed in 
scarlet. 

The ladies were all seated one day in Mrs. Trevilian’s 
room, which looked like an Oriental bazaar with its gay 
plaid linseys covering every available space. Mrs. Tre- 
vilian sat by the bed, cutting out the women^s winter 
dresses, and Miss Nannie’s deft fingers were rapidly 
transforming them into garments. 

There was an open fire in the room, and Miss Abby sat 
in front of it, doing her Saturday’s darning — an onerous 
task for her hands, which were better trained to the pen 
than to the needle. She felt almost dizzy at the rapidity 
with which work was being turned off to-day by these 
experienced seamstresses. 

Miss Abby had settled down into the most comfortable 
relations with the Trevilian family, in spite of widely 
differing ways. She had actually learned to lie in bed and 
have her fire made,— so seductive are luxurious habits, 
even to those born of Puritan stock and brought up on 
the east wind. 

The school was well started— not without some few 
tilts between teacher and patrons, it is true — and was pro- 
gressing finely. Miss Abby had wanted to start a class 
in physiology, which was vetoed by the mothers, who said 

71 


72 


ORDER NO. 11 


that physiology might be well enough for boys, perhaps, 
but it was certainly indelicate for girls. They had them 
take instead geography of the heavens, as being more 
practical, and Grecian mythology as less likely to corrupt 
the imagination. 

Nan,’^ said Mrs. Trevilian, unrolling a bundle of blue 
jeans, “ see if you can find me Uncle Reuben’s coat pat- 
tern. It is marked with his name.” 

Miss Abby looked up in astonishment. You don’t 
tell me you make the men’s clothes too ? ” 

Why, of course,” returned Mrs. Trevilian. “ Who 
else would make them ? ” 

Don’t the women sew at all ? ” 

“ They do their mending. But they could n’t really be 
expected to make their clothes. They have their other 
work to do.” 

Miss Abby sniffed. 

I know you think they don’t work very hard. Miss 
Abby,— but there ’s Ca’line, now. She does all the wash- 
ing for the family, with Liz’s help,— and the ironing. 
What time would she have to sew ? ” 

“ Plenty of time,” said Miss Abby, severely. She had 
made a number of observations since she had been on this 
easy-going farm, and one of them was that there was a 
great waste of time as well as other things — a sinful 
waste, she called it. She had long wanted an opportunity 
to express her mind about it. '' Caroline could do the 
washing and ironing in two days — three at most. My 
mother used to do the washing for a family of nine and 
get it out by ten o’clock. I ’ve heard her say often that 
she would feel disgraced to hang out a washing after 
dinner. All her work was done up in the forenoon.” 
“What time did she get up?” asked Miss Nannie. 

“ At four o’clock— on wash-days— winter and summer. 
Had to, to get it done by ten.” 


DOMESTIC ECONOMY 


73 


'' Was there any law requiring it to be done by ten ? 

'' It was the custom of the country/’ said Miss Abby, 
shortly. She did not like Miss Nannie’s satirical air. 

Well, sister Bettie, suppose we adopt that custom,” 
suggested Miss Nannie, blandly. '' It would probably 
keep you awake the best part of the night, and it would 
rout brother William out to wake Ca’line, and she would 
rouse the rest of the family rummaging around for the 
clothes,— but it might end in her getting started by ten 
o’clock ! That would be something gained. Did you ever 
try to hurry a darky. Miss Abby ? ” 

No,” said Miss Abby, with significant emphasis. 

Thank God, I ’ve never had anything to do with them ! 
But-” 

I thought not ! ” interpolated Miss Nannie. 

''—I can see no reason why they should not be trained 
to habits of system and the economical use of time, the 
same as anybody else. I am sure, Mrs. Trevilian, that my 
mother could get three times as much out of these negroes 
as you do.” 

“ I don’t doubt it,” returned Mrs. Trevilian, dryly. “ It 
was a well-known fact in Virginia that the Northern over- 
seers got more work out of the negroes than anybody else 
— ansd were harder on them. You can easily see why. 
It was not that they were more hard-hearted. They sim- 
ply expected them to do as much work as white men, and 
Southern people never expect that. They know them too 
well.” 

“ I think it ought to be expected. It is no kindness to 
let them dawdle over their work.” 

It is not surprising that Miss Abby thought they daw- 
dled over their work. They certainly did. As one looks 
back upon it now, it seems strange how they ever kept up 
a pretense of being busy; for, with so many to do the 
work, there was a minute subdivision of labor in those 


74 


ORDER NO. 11 


homes that would have been amusing to a brisk New 
England housekeeper accustomed, as Miss Abby had 
said, to getting her work done up in the forenoon, if she 
had not from long habit shut her eyes to all but the darker, 
sadder side. 

How to keep them busy was really a problem, and the 
question that Mrs. Trevilian put now to Miss Abby was 
the key-note to the difficulty. 

'' What would Caline do the rest of the week if I in- 
sisted on her finishing by Wednesday?’’ 

She might learn to sew.” Miss Abby laid down her 
work and assumed her argumentative expression. She 
was on her native heath when arguing. 

“ But if she does the laundry work, that is enough for 
her to do. It is her part.” 

‘Mt is a very small part of what an energetic New Eng- 
land woman would do,” said Miss Abby. She still felt 
that these people did not know what a real day’s work 
was. 

I suppose so,” returned Mrs. Trevilian, quietly; “but 
if we should work our negroes as hard as the New Eng- 
land women work themselves, you would have reason to 
abuse us.” 

“ Well,” urged Miss Abby, “ if they worked faster they 
could get through and have some time to rest.” 

“ But they would rather take their rest as they go along. 
And why not? ” 

“ It is a waste of time,” declared the New England 
woman. “ I think we will be held accountable for that as 
well as for a waste of other things.” 

What things she did not say. She shut her lips firmly 
together, lest they should release what was behind them. 
The truth was that the prodigality of this household was 
almost more than she could see go by unrebuked. Why, 
they sometimes ate six chickens a day — nine. Miss Nan- 


DOMESTIC ECONOMY 


75 


nie had told her, when they first began to use them : 
three broiled for breakfast, three fried for dinner, and 
three smothered for supper. Such wasteful extravagance ! 
Why did n't they wait till the chickens were full grown 
before they began eating them? She had asked Mrs. Tre- 
vilian one day how many she raised. ‘‘ About five hun- 
dred," she had replied, and then to Miss Abby’s remark 
that they must bring her in quite a sum, had added in 
surprise, “ Oh, we never sell any. We raise them entirely 
for our own use. But we have a good deal of company." 

Then there were the cows. Miss Abby had counted 
them one day when the women were milking. Thirteen ! 
And they never sold a pound of butter ! She had spoken 
to Mrs. Trevilian about that one day too. My ! If her 
father had those thirteen cows, how much he would make 
from them ! But Mrs. Trevilian had only said : No, we 
never sell any. Aunt Viny does n't like to be stinted, and 
neither do we. My family like butter better than anything 
that butter will buy." 

“ But thirteen cows ! " Miss Abby had gasped. I 
should think — " 

Of course we give about half the milk to the calves," 
explained the beleaguered housekeeper, driven to it to 
explain her ways to this stern economist ; and we use a 
great deal of cream." 

“We give our calves skim milk," suggested Miss 
Abby. 

“ Well, we don't." It was spoken as curtly as it was 
in this well-balanced lady to speak. The truth is, no- 
body likes to have her own particular faults of manage- 
ment made matters of astonished comment, even by those 
who can manage better. 

Miss Abby used to walk around and mentally estimate 
what this thing and that — sacrificed so needlessly here — 
would bring in Boston. The apples, for instance. Why, 


76 


ORDER NO. 11 


there were barrels and barrels of them going to waste! 
She could not forbear speaking of it one day. Mrs. Tre- 
vilian had said : 

Why, we have enough to last us as long as they will 
keep. The apple-holes are full, and we have dried them 
and made apple-butter.’’ It did seem to her that they 
were blameless on the apple question. 

But Miss Abby had persisted. '' Could n’t you find a 
market for them in Kansas City ? ” 

“ Oh, we never sell them,” was the reply. Mr. Tre- 
vilian has n’t time to bother with a few bushels of apples. 
Besides, the hogs eat them.” 

It seemed to Miss Abby that the waste of time on this 
place was after the same pattern. She returned to it now. 

If they should work more expeditiously,” she said 
with some hesitation, — she felt a little in doubt herself 
about the propriety of what she was about to say, and 
still more as to how it would be taken, — “ they would have 
time for something else besides work— reading, for in- 
stance.” 

'' But who would have time to teach them ? ” asked Mrs. 
Trevilian. Nan and I are busy making their clothes 
and attending to those that are sick. Virginia did try 
once. She and Liz had a great time of cleaning out the 
hen-house and fixing it up for a school for the little ne- 
groes. Do you remember it. Nan? But she soon got 
tired of it.” 

“ You can’t teach them,” said Miss Nannie. '' They 
have n’t the minds that white people have.” 

I should like to try it,” said Miss Abby, firmly. 
‘'You can never make me believe that the Almighty made 
human beings and left out the brains 1 ” 

“You may try it,” said Mrs. Trevilian, prompll}^. 
“ You can take them any time you want to. Of course 
you would have to teach the men at night.” 




DOMESTIC ECONOMY 


77 


Miss Abby was thunderstruck. 

Do you mean it ? ” she gasped. Here was the oppor- 
tunity that of ail things she had longed for. She could 
not believe that it had actually come. How her father 
would rejoice that it had been given to her to minister to 
these poor thirsting souls! 

''Isn’t there a law against teaching the slaves?” she 
asked. 

" I really don’t know whether there is in this State or 
not. There is in the South, but nobody pays any attention 
to it. It is simply a precautionary law. We can do as we 
please with our own servants. But the law is made so 
that if anybody should come down here and attempt to 
make trouble in that way, he could be stopped.” 

Miss Abby was amazed. " I never had thought of it 
in that way,” she mused thoughtfully. " I always sup- 
posed it was a criminal offense for anybody to teach them 
anything.” 

"Not at all. It is difficult, but not criminal. You are 
welcome to try it — if you can get them to come.” 

" I imagine there will be no trouble about that,” said 
Miss Abby. 

Miss Nannie raised her eyebrows and smiled. 

No time was lost in getting the new project on foot. 
Colonel Trevilian was consulted and gave prompt con- 
sent. He even suggested the use of the loom-room, now 
unoccupied, for the new school-house— the " Loom- 
house Academy,” Miss Nannie christened it, and Vir- 
ginia rummaged the attic for old " first readers.” 

The little negroes were jubilant at the thought of hav- 
ing a school of their own, supposing it would make them 
white; and the men looked foolish and joked over it, but 
were willing to try. But Miss Abby felt pained at heart 
by the apathy of the women. She could not understand 


78 


ORDER NO. 11 


their indifference when such a vital point as their educa- 
tion was at stake. 

Perhaps Mammy voiced the trend of feminine senti- 
ment more clearly than anybody else. 

Mammy/’ asked Miss Nannie, affably, a few days 
later, “ are you going to attend the Loom-house Acad- 
emy ? ” 

“ No’m, I ain’t ! ” said Mammy, with decision. '' She 
ain’t give me nothin’ sence she ’s been hyeah ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 


A SPIRITED MAIDEN 


IRGINIA TREVILIAN, in her becoming riding- 



V habit and jaunty cap, was riding at a leisurely gait 
along the road that led from Dr. Lay's to Keswick. In 
her lap was a bundle which explained her errand, but 
whose dog-eared contents could never have been guessed 
from its neat exterior. 

With the same enthusiasm that had engineered a 
chicken funeral or a baptizing in her youthful days, Vir- 
ginia had undertaken to provide books for the Loom- 
house Academy. She had ransacked the garret and 
bookcase at home for old primers, spelling-books, readers, 
and whatever else had the alphabet in it, — and most books 
had in those days,— and this afternoon she and Sallie had 
done the same thorough job at Dr. Lay's. 

She must have been pleased with the result, for she 
was smiling to herself at that— or something. It was 
probably something, for that search among the old books 
with Gordon Lay's name in them had brought vividly to 
mind the days gone by, when they had measured the flight 
of time by the page of Webster's spelling-book, and the 
height of their attainments by the reader they were in. 

Those old books had a good deal of scribbling in them, 
she found,— a large part of it hers, — and she was thinking 
that she would look them over to-night with an eraser 
before they were put into circulation. Miss Abby might 
get hold of them. Old school-books tell so much more 
than their authors ever dreamed of. 


79 


8o 


ORDER NO. 11 


Sallie had shown her a letter from Gordon, and there 
had been in it a note to herself which she had slipped in 
her bosom, forgetting she had a pocket. She was trying 
to recall the exact words of something in that note. 
Twice she started to take it from its hiding-place, and 
each time she stopped. 

“ I won’t ! I ’ll wait till I get down to the old grape- 
vine tree,” she told herself. That was where she always 
read her letters from him. He was getting along finely 
at Transylvania, he wrote, but he missed the prairie. 

Just as she had reached this decision for the second 
time, a slight sound came to her ears and she looked 
back. A man^on a white horse was emerging from the 
timber that she had just passed through. 

With a quick frown she gave Rob Roy’s bridle the jerk 
that started him into a rack. She did not wish to appear 
to be running away, — she said to herself distinctly that 
she was not,— but she meant to get to the fork of the 
road before Emmons Baird did. 

But the hoof-beats behind were coming nearer, and, 
without once looking around, she threw Rob Roy into a 
lope, her head erect and a red spot on her cheeks. She 
was determined to make that fork in the road first. 

She did. But, to her surprise, the white horse did not 
take the road going down to the old Baskin place. In a 
moment he and his rider were beside her. 

'' Good aft— good evening ! ” said a well-oiled voice, 
which sounded, for all its smoothness, as if it might rasp 
when the time came. 

“ Oh, good evening ! ” said Virginia, politely. She 
had been beaten, but she need not let him know it. I 
thought once I heard somebody behind me.” 

They kept up an intermittent conversation, during 
which Virginia took herself severely to task. Emmons 
Baird really had never done anything that she should feel 


A SPIRITED MAIDEN 


8i 


SO toward him ! Why could n't she treat him decently, as 
her mother had said ? Of course he was common, and all 
that, but— Then she made an honest effort to be civil. 
But girls are queer compounds— and contradictory. The 
thing that Virginia most disliked in Emmons Baird was 
that he liked her. 

“ I suppose you hear from Bev often,” he remarked ; 
and Virginia instantly resented the familiarity. 

Do you mean my brother ? ” she asked. 

The rebuff dropped from Emmons Baird’s coat of com- 
placency like water from the back of one of his own mus- 
covies. 

“ Yes. I always call him Bev. Most of them do 
around the neighborhood, don’t they ? ” 

“ His friends call him that sometimes. Yes, we hear 
from him frequently.” 

I suppose you hear from young Lay full as often, 
don’t you ? ” He looked at her with a glance that was 
meant for playful badinage. But the man was clumsy 
and very much in earnest. When the badinage reached 
her, she took it for what it really was— impertinent curi- 
osity. Besides, badinage must be between peers. 

I suppose they hear from him,” she said coldly. 

He was impervious to the change of pronouns, but even 
he could not help perceiving the change of atmosphere. 
He would not abandon the subject, however; for he had 
carefully planned it to lead up to his main proposition. 

It must be pretty lonesome for you without the boys,” 
he pursued. “ And it ’s lonesome down at the old Bas- 
kin place all the time. Say, Virginia, I ’ve been think- 
ing that — that— seeing you are lonesome and I am lone- 
some— we might— have you any objections to our 
keeping company this winter ? ” 

It was an innocent enough proposition, couched in the 
language of his part of the country and his class, but 


82 


ORDER NO. 11 


Virginia had never even heard the expression. And the 
idea of Emmons Baird presuming to call her Virginia/’ 
and to say such a thing, anyway ! She was furious. 

I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Baird,” she said 
when she had found her voice through her astonishment, 
' and I do not care for any explanation. If you will ex- 
cuse me, I will ride on, as I am in something of a hurry.” 

Her words were civil enough, but her manner was a 
slap in the face. She could hardly have put more con- 
temptuousness into it. Moreover, it put a quietus upon 
his hopes, for the present at least. The campaign upon 
which he had hoped to enter would evidently be unsuc- 
cessful. The girl did understand ! Every evil passion 
in the man was aroused. He laid a heavy hand on her 
horse’s bridle and brought him to a walk. 

By God ! you won’t ride on till you ’ve heard me out ! ” 
he said between set teeth. “ I guess there ain’t any law 
against a man’s telling a girl he likes her and wants to 
keep company with her ! ” 

'‘Let go my horse!'' 

‘‘You wait till I-” 

"Let go my horse, I tell you!" 

He tightened his grasp and gave a wicked leer into her 
white face. They were alone on the road. 

But if he thought to cow her thus, he had mistaken the 
girl. In her right hand was a riding-whip. Without 
warning, she brought it down in a stinging blow on his 
hand. 

He gave a howl of rage and pain, and involuntarily his 
grasp relaxed. 

Had Virginia been a less expert horsewoman, she 
might have been in the dust at his feet, after all ; for Rob 
Roy felt the insult of a blow dealt out to a meaner crea- 
ture and leaped forward. 

But she was braced for the leap and kept her seat. 


A SPIRITED MAIDEN 


83 


though the package of books fell to the ground. A swift 
glance over her shoulder showed that he was not in pur- 
suit ; but, for all that, she did not draw rein till she was at 
the big gate of Keswick. 

Her excited account of it was characteristically re- 
ceived. 

“And what did you do?’’ Miss Nannie asked breath- 
lessly, when Virginia got as far as the stopping of her 
horse. 

“ I gave him a cut with my riding-whip.” 

“ Why, Virginia! ” exclaimed her mother. 

“ And served him right 1 ” Miss Nannie asserted stoutly. 
“ Such a man can’t be reached except through his hide ! ” 

“ Nan, you are as bad as Virginia ! ” 

When Colonel Trevilian heard of it he fairly raged. 
That a woman should be held up on the highway in such 
high-handed fashion seemed to a man of his birth and 
traditions— to say nothing of his somewhat inflammable 
temperament— a monstrous thing. 

He got on his horse and rode straight over to the old 
Baskin place. 

Emmons Baird had reached home and came sullenly 
out when called for by Colonel Trevilian. He stopped 
long enough to arm himself, though, and he held one hand 
across the red welt on the other. 

He listened in dogged silence while the Colonel used 
up five minutes and his extensive vocabulary in telling 
him what he thought of him, and then he said with a 
sneer : 

“ Well, you can call me out if you want to, like you did 
the other man. I ain’t afraid to meet you ! ” 

It was an untimely recalling of the fact, well known in 
the community but never adverted to, that the Colonel in 
his hot-headed youth had once met a man in mortal com- 
bat on the field of honor. 


84 


ORDER NO. 11 


''Call you out!” he roared; '' youf Let me tell you, 
sir, that a gentleman calls out only gentlemen 1 I would 
sooner challenge your hound yonder 1 But I ’ll tell you 
what I will do. If ever I hear of your molesting a woman 
again on the public highway in Jackson County, be it my 
daughter or a negro wench, I ’ll cowhide you within an 
inch of your life, sir 1 ” 

He drew out a yellow silk bandana and wiped his heated 
face. 

" Things have come to a pretty pass if our women 
can’t ride about the country without fear of insult from 
some blackguard of a fellow, come here from the Lord 
knows where, for the Lord knows what 1 Are we to have 
the methods of Kansas turned loose upon us? If so, 
we ’d better send for the Kansas slayer and be done with 
it! By the Eternal! a man like you deserves a bullet in 
the forehead! Why, sir—” 

He stopped, struck dumb by the look on the man’s 
face. 

During the first part of this arraignment, Emmons 
Baird had stood in sullen defiance, the hot blood flaming 
in his swarthy cheek — for no man, however debased, can 
hear such words from fellow-man without resentment; 
but as Colonel Trevilian finished, the blood receded, a 
grayish pallor crept over his face, and a look— a hunted 
look — of abject terror into his eyes. He drew back and 
glanced quickly over his shoulder, with an involuntary 
movement of his hand toward his head. He seemed al- 
most to have forgotten his visitor. 

But when Colonel Trevilian had turned his horse’s head 
and he stood alone, Emmons Baird remembered all those 
stinging words that had fallen like blows upon him, and 
the blood came back to his face with a rush, and a malig- 
nant gleam took the place of the terror in his eyes. He 
shook his clenched hand after his departing visitor with 


A SPIRITED MAIDEN 85 

a gesture of menace, and his face was that of a bad man 
who means mischief. 

“ By God ! '' he said hoarsely, '' I dl pay you for this, 
old man, if it takes me forty years ! ’’ 

Colonel Trevilian said little about the interview when 
he got home, and nothing at all of the thing that he re- 
called about it with the most interest. But he pondered 
over that look deeply. ... It had been a random shot- 
but it had brought down the game. . . . Could it po? 
sible that Emmons Baird was— 

Nonsense ! 


CHAPTER IX 


THE LOOM-HOUSE ACADEMY 

I N Spite of Mammy’s defection and the logical reason 
therefor, the new school opened with every prospect 
of success. The charm of novelty is nowhere more potent 
than with the race that Miss Abby was seeking to uplift. 
They may lack staying qualities, but not enthusiasm. 

Colonel Trevilian gave her all the assistance she could 
desire, except that he would not require any of them to 
attend. They might go if they so elected, but there should 
be no compulsion in the matter. He had Uncle Peter, the 
farm carpenter, make some puncheon benches and a long 
table for the prospective scholars. 

Virginia, her ardor undampened by her recent adven- 
ture, undertook to see that the room was in readiness. 
With Liz’s help this was done, and when the hour came 
the old loom-house, with its two tallow candles on the 
mantelpiece, two more on the table, and the crackle and 
glow of a hickory fire, was not an unattractive place for 
Keswick’s rival school. 

The lighting was reinforced at the last minute by 
Mammy’s contribution of a saucer of grease in which was 
a twisted rag for a wick. It is impossible to say whether 
it was love of Virginia that prompted this offering, or a 
natural curiosity to see the school-house without a sacri- 
fice of dignity in going thither. At any rate, the Oriental 
lamp was brought by her and deposited in the middle of 
the table, where it did its humble best to illuminate a some- 
what dark scene. 


86 


THE LOOMTiOUSE ACADEMY 87 


At the signal— the dinner-bell in Virginians hands— they 
came in, a motley crew, headed by old Uncle Bob, crippled 
and deaf, who usually went to roost with the chickens. 
They ranged in age down to Cadine’s youngest, Uncle 
Bob’s grandchild. If modern methods had been in vogue 
then, they might have had the stimulus of class instruc- 
tion, for they were all at “ A.” 

It really was more of an attendance than Miss Abby 
had dared hope for. They more than filled the benches on 
each side of the long table. Virginia promptly seated the 
overflow of tender years on the floor in front of the fire, 
where they sat most properly, except for an occasional 
nervous giggle. 

Miss Abby had intended to open the school with prayer, 
and had so informed Virginia ; but when they were seated 
and looking up into her face with that dumb expectancy 
which she always found so pathetic, she was suddenly 
seized with stage fright, if the expression could be so far 
wrested from its proper place as to refer to prayer. Never 
in her whole self-possessed life had she felt so embar- 
rassed. Virginia’s quick intuition saw the trouble and a 
way out. 

Call on Uncle Reuben,” she whispered. 

Miss Abby obeyed. And how Uncle Reuben did pray ! 
The New England woman listened in a sort of dazed 
wonder. She had conscientiously determined to open 
every session with prayer,— her own, of course,— which 
she knew would be halting and imperfect, but better than 
none. She relinquished the intention before the old man 
was half through. Uncle Reuben was more at home here 
than she was. 

When she reached home that night she was in a state 
of excitement that forbade sleep. It seemed to her that 
this experiment was fraught with no end of possibilities 
for those she sought to help. Miss Abby confidently be- 


88 


ORDER NO. 11 


lieved that the end of the black man’s bondage was near at 
hand. And she was permitted to have some small share 
in preparing him for the new life that was before him! 
She must tell somebodj> about it. She drew her table be- 
fore the fire and wrote. What joy that letter would bring 
to the faithful ones at home waiting for the coming of the 
day 1 

'' Keswick, Jackson County, Missouri^ 

'' November — , 1859. 

'' My dear Father : 

“ I have delayed my usual letter several days because I 
had something of importance to communicate and did not 
wish to do so until after to-night. You will rejoice with 
me, I know, that the opportunity I so earnestly desired in 
coming to a slave State— that is, to be able to do some- 
thfng to ameliorate the condition of these poor creatures 
—has come to me earlier than I dared hope. I shall have 
the inestimable privilege of leading them to the fountain 
of knowledge, that they may slake their thirst. When we 
reflect how long it has been withheld from them, we can 
well imagine what that thirst must be. 

'' It has all come about in the most natural manner pos- 
sible. I can see the hand of Providence in it all. 

When I broached the subject of teaching them, I ex- 
pected the most bitter opposition ; but God had put it into 
the hearts of Colonel Trevilian and his wife (who really 
are very good people, though slave-holders) to second my 
efforts, and, almost before I could ask, my request was 
granted. I must say that they have been very cordial in 
their support of my plans. 

To-night I began work in a disused building called the 
Loom-house, and had a most gratifying attendance. The 
women, for some unexplainable reason, do not take hold 
of it as the men do, but I hope they will come in time. 


THE LOOM-HOUSE ACADEMY 89 


Their ignorance is appalling. Why, they actually do not 
know the alphabet; and some of them are old men! It 
will be slow work, but I hope much from their deep inter- 
est. I go from one to another, hearing them say the 
letters I have told them ; and often, by the time I have got 
around, they will have forgotten the first ones. 

'' Virginia, who is a very bright, attractive girl, though 
she laughs too much, helped me to-night. She does not 
seem to mind in the least going near them ; but I am 
ashamed to say that, as anxious as I am to help them, I 
feel a repugnance at coming in contact with them that as 
yet I am not able to conquer. I strive constantly against 
the feeling, but it is so strong that it seems to me they 
must almost be aware of it. [And they were.] But that 
is not the way for me to feel, and I hope to overcome it 
by strong effort and prayer. I consider them down-trod- 
. den and oppressed, and I want them to have their rights, 
but really I am glad that we are not likely to have very 
many of them in Massachusetts. It seems so strange to 
me that none of the family here seem to have this repug- 
nance at all. 

'' There was one thing that surprised me very much. I 
felt so strangely embarrassed when I came before those 
old men that I felt unequal to beginning with prayer as I 
had intended doing, — I think it is best to give them some 
religious instruction, — and Virginia suggested my call- 
ing on Uncle Reuben, the carriage-driver of whom I wrote 
to you. I did so, and I have hardly ever heard a better 
prayer. Coming from one who does not even know his 
letters, it is astonishing! They certainly have had more 
religious instruction than we have been led to believe, or 
else he is in communication with the fountainhead. Vir- 
ginia says he is the exhorter at the prayer-meetings which 
they hold from cabin to cabin. 


90 


ORDER NO. 11 


This country is full of surprises to me. You know we 
had always supposed that they were not allowed to hold 
any kind of gatherings. 

I feel so uplifted in spirit that I am permitted to do 
this work, and I hope for great things. With their hunger 
for^nowledge, it will be a pleasure to teach them ; and I 
think— or at least I hope— I shall get over the feeling I 
spoke of. Pray for me, that I may not faint by the way- 
side while they struggle on. 

“ Yr. aff. daughter, 

'' Abby Ann Cheever.'’ 

Miss Abby wrote this letter in a kind of spiritual exal- 
tation. It was on foolscap paper, with a square left 
blank in the middle of the last page. She folded it dex- 
terously, so that the writing was hidden, and sealed it 
with red wax. Envelops for general use had not then 
reached the prairie, and Miss Abby was economical. 

They were full of talk the next morning, at the break- 
fast-table, about the school; and Miss Abby told of her 
surprise, which she could not get over, at Uncle Reuben’s 
prayer. 

Oh, Reuben makes a good prayer,” said Colonel Tre- 
vilian ; “ and, what is more, he lives up to the grade of his 
praying. Did he ask the Lord to send down His ' sanc- 
tum-sanctorum ’ upon you ? ” 

Miss Abby looked blank. '' tiis ' sanctum-sancto- 
rum ’ ? ” she questioned. 

“Yes. The bishop tells about being down at one of 
their meetings in Virginia once, and the old preacher 
wanted to do his best by them, and he prayed that God 
would send down His ' sanctum-sanctorum ’ upon them. 
The next morning the old preacher (who was the car- 
riage-driver) took his master’s guests to the boat. The 
bishop thought he would get his idea of what it meant. 


THE LOOM-HOUSE ACADEMY 91 


You know they are more careful to get sound than sense, 
Miss Abby/' 

Miss Abby had noticed it, to the great confusion of her 
ideas. She could not always follow Mammy on account 
of it. 

Well, the bishop said to him : ‘ Uncle, I was v%ry 
much obliged to you for all the good things called down 
upon me last night, but I wanted to ask you just what you 
meant by His ‘‘ sanctum-sanctorum.’' ’ 

'' The old darky scratched his head a moment, and then 
said : ‘ Well, master, I don’ jes’ ezac’ly know what dat 
word do mean, but I know what I meant by it.’ 

“ ' Well, what ’s that,’ asked the bishop. 

^ I meant give ’em de bes’ you got ! ’ ” 

They laughed heartily over the story, and Miss Abby 
remarked : “ Uncle Reuben did n’t say that, but he prayed 
that we might ' be fed from a low rack.’ I thought that 
was good.” 

It was expressive enough to one who has ever seen 
stock try to reach up to a high one,” said the Colonel. 
'' Reuben’s prayers are full of symbolism. His metaphors 
are a little mixed sometimes, but they are always striking.” 

“ Miss Abby, that prayer was for you,” laughed Mrs. 
Trevilian. “ Uncle Reuben was afraid you would shoot 
over their heads.” 

^'Well, Jake knows three letters, anyway, if he never 
learns any more,” declared Virginia, — round O, crooked 
S, and T. I skipped about.” 

“ I want to know ! I began at the beginning and taught 
them straight down.” It hardly seemed orthodox to her 
to do any other way. 

I tried to teach him Q,” said Virginia, with a remi- 
niscent gurgle of laughter ; “ but he could n’t remember it. 
All he could tell was that it was ' dat un wha’ got a tail 
hitch on.’ ” 


92 


ORDER NO. 11 


Virginia, are you going to help Miss Abby every 
night? '' There was evident disapproval in Miss Nannie's 
voice. 

'' Yes'm. As long as they come. I think it 's fun." 

Miss Abby did not quite understand Virginia's quali- 
fying clause. 

“ I shall need you all winter," she said. “ You are a 
great help to me." 

Miss Nannie smiled— that inscrutable smile that al- 
ways made Miss Abby uncomfortable. 

The school began on Tuesday. Uncle Bob held out till 
Friday, when he concluded that the late hours were too 
much for him. He was, doubtless, led to this decision 
by Aunt Viny's scorn of “ any ole fool nigger, wi'’ one foot 
in de grave, settin' down studyin' a-b ahs, stidder gittin' a 
good night's res' ! " Conjugal scorn will tell even on el- 
derly ideals. 

When Saturday came, Logan, one of the younger men, 
and one that Miss Abby counted on most, was missing. 
He had gone to his wife’s house, which Miss Abby con- 
sidered a most reprehensible thing to do, seeing that he 
had to miss a night’s schooling to do it. Mrs. Trevilian 
had suggested that Saturday was a bad night to have 
school, but Miss Abby had said grimly that they needed 
all the time there was — there was none to lose. 

Liz, too, was kept away by a visit from a neighboring 
gallant on Mr. Swamscott's farm. Miss Abby felt that it 
was inexcusable for them to let such trivial things inter- 
fere with what should be the absorbing interest in life to 
them. 

Why, of course Logan wants to go to his wife's 
house," said Mrs. Trevilian, half indignantly, when the 
grievance was laid before her. ‘‘ And he ought to go. 
He has a sick child.” 

Can't the mother take care of it ? " asked the lady 
whose teaching instincts were easily stirred, but whose 


THE LOOM-HOUSE ACADEMY 93 


human impulses were as yet held in abeyance. He will 
forget everything he has learned before Monday.’’ 

Then let him forget! ” Mrs. Trevilian said, this time 
more than half indignantly. Don’t you suppose they 
have any natural affection ? ” 

Liz’s case was even worse. She was simply out 
'' sparkin’,” as Ca’line explained. It may be said in her 
defense that her lover, too, could come over but once a 
week. 

I told you you ’d better not have school on Saturday,” 
said Mrs. Trevilian. That is their night.” 

Jake stayed by her until he had mastered half the al- 
phabet, and then his own fireside began to seem more en- 
ticing than the Loom-house Academy. Miss Abby did 
not like for them to come in their working-clothes, and 
the strain of wearing Sunday fixin’s ” on week-days was 
too much for Jake. 

Ca’line she ’lowed I was too old to learn, anyway,” he 
explained to his irate instructress when she demanded 
the reason of his withdrawal. 

'' Nobody is too old to learn that wants to learn 1 ” she 
had replied with emphasis. And there she unwittingly 
struck the key-note of the difficulty. They had no strong, 
abiding desire to learn. It had been a craving for novelty 
more than a hunger for knowledge that had prompted 
their attendance, in the first place. 

Miss Abby was inexpressibly disappointed in them. 
Why, they dropped out on the slightest pretext; and as 
Colonel Trevilian had distinctly stated that he would not 
compel their attendance, there really was nothing to do 
but to let them go. 

The younger ones held on longer, urged thereto by pa- 
rental authority, which can sometimes see a good thing 
for one’s offspring more clearly than for one’s self ; but 
even this following daily grew thinner. Uncle Reuben 
had held firm amidst the exodus. He wanted to learn 


94 


ORDER NO. 11 


how to read. But when it was proposed to hold a pro- 
tracted meeting and the Loom-house was needed for it, 
Uncle Reuben, too, wavered and succumbed. The meet- 
ing was more important than the school;— also more en- 
joyable. 

To say that Miss Abby was grieved at the ignoble fail- 
ure of her effort is to put it mildly. She was chagrined 
beyond expression. It seemed to her that the fault must 
be in her. It could not be possible that any people could 
be so lacking in enterprise and love of learning. She was 
disgusted with them and angry with herself. She did not 
stop to reason that ambition is a thing of inheritance, and 
that their inheritance had been in the line of sloth. 

'' They actually seem satisfied to remain in ignorance,'’ 
she said to Mrs. Trevilian in bewildered helplessness. 

They are. You can see for yourself that they are 
contented. They would rather have their play-parties and 
their prayer-meetings than all the learning that you can 
give them. They are very much like children.” 

You could not advance a stronger argument against 
slavery,” cried Miss Abby, with heat. That they are 
satisfied with their condition is the deepest degradation of 
all! It has taken away their manhood and womanhood, 
and left them content with a mere animal existence. It 
is worse to destroy the soul than to enslave the body, — in- 
finitely worse ! That is no argument at all ! ” 

“ Heaven forbid that I should argue! ” said Mrs. Tre- 
vilian, hastily. “ I am no Yankee! I am only stating a 
fact that you yourself have discovered.” 

Miss Abby wrote again to her father that night. From 
the Loom-house could be heard the sound of many voices 
singing the monotonous hymns so full of resonant sound 
and so void of sense to any but the singers. It irritated 
her to hear them. She felt that that letter would be taken 
in far-off New England as an admission that she had in- 


THE LOOM-HOUSE ACADEMY 95 


gloriously capitulated at the beginning of the war. And 
yet— how little they knew about it ! Her very first doubt 
of the wisdom of trying to settle the great problem at 
long range came over her. 

The letter was written from a full heart. 

They drop out/’ she wrote, on the most trivial pre- 
texts— a man’s wanting to go to his wife’s house, a girl 
to entertain her beau from another farm, the children 
because they are sleepy, etc. You see, the slaves are per- 
mitted to marry those on neighboring farms; and when 
Saturday night comes, each man thinks he must ' go to his 
wife’s house,’ as they always say. Think of allowing such 
silly things to interfere with the serious matter of edu- 
cation! And they may never have another opportunity 
like this. I am out of all patience with them ! They are 
so emotional! If they can only get together and sing 
their senseless hymns, and shout, and carry on, they are 
perfectly happy.” 

And at this moment there rolled up from the improvised 
sanctuary a wave of ecstatic melody: 

Jesus through the heavens ride, 

Oh, my Lord! 

With two white horses side by side, 

An’ oh, my Lord! 

He ’s a lily of the valley. 

An’ oh, my Lord ! 

He ’s a lily of the valley. 

An’ oh, my Lord ! ” 

Miss Abby closed the window which she had opened 
because she was so hot. 

Such childishness ! 


CHAPTER X 


A GROWN-UP MAN ’’ 

I F the colored school at Keswick was a failure, — and 
Miss Abby was forced to confess to herself that it was, 
—the white one was a most abundant success. Never in 
the history of the neighborhood had there been a school 
so well attended and so satisfactory in every way. Miss 
Abby’s methods were advanced, and her scholarship be- 
yond question. Why, she had an intimate acquaintance 
with Latin, and was even teaching Ike Swamscott the 
rudiments of Greek. 

The ladies of this conservative neighborhood looked 
covertly for ink-stains and disheveled hair when they 
heard of these heights of attainment. Classical learning 
was not unknown even in that day on the frontier, but 
it was strictly limited to the sex supposed to be able to 
grasp it. A Latin scholar in petticoats was a rare bird 
on Grand Prairie, and feminine knowledge of the world’s 
most polished language was limited to Alpha and 
Omega ’’—the first and the last of St. John the Divine. 
vSo often, however, had they heard this much in prayer 
and sermon that it had come to be invested with a kind 
of sacred solemnity, and when Mrs. Trevilian once acci- 
dentally overheard Beverly, in the exuberance of youth- 
ful spirits and recent acquisition, running over his Alpha, 
Beta, Gamma, Delta, with its inevitable paraphrase of 
'' At ’er ! Beat ’er ! Damn ’er ! Pelt ’er ! ” she was 
shocked beyond expression, and realized that the new 
learning was beset with dangers. 

96 


A -GROWN-UP MAN 


97 


So successful was Miss Abby’s school that before 
Christmas Colonel Treviliari and the rest were making 
their plans to secure her for the coming year. Of course, 
as some of the ladies said, she had a brother in Lawrence, 
—but that really was not her fault, and perhaps he was 
not an Abolitionist, after all. It was not right to con- 
demn a man unheard. 

The hearing came off sooner than they expected. 

Miss Abby had a letter one day that threw the Tre- 
vilian household into great excitement. Her brother. Dr. 
Cheever, announced that he would be over at Christmas 
to spend a day or two with her. 

- Write to him and tell him to arrange to stay at least 
a week,’' said Mrs. Trevilian, hospitably, — “two, if he 
can.” 

“ Could you board him here? ” Miss Abby questioned. 

“Board him! Miss Abby! Do you suppose I would 
charge your brother board? Write to him to come ex- 
actly as you would if you were in your mother’s house.” 

These Missouri people certainly were hospitable. Miss 
Abby thought, as she wrote the message ; but, of course, it 
was easy to be hospitable with all these negroes to do the 
work,— when Jake stood ready to take the horses, and 
Mammy to make the fires, and Aunt Viny to wring the 
chickens’ necks, and all were in such a ridiculous state of 
delight at having company. Which v/as all true enough ; 
but then it is always easier when it runs in the blood, — 
and it had run in the Trevilian blood since the memory 
of man. 

Virginia and Sallie Devereau speculated not a little as 
to what Dr. Cheever would look Tike : one predicting that 
he would be fat and bald ; the other, that he would be 
tall and thin, with a general odor of asafetida, and spec- 
tacles over which he would look at them if they giggled, 
— and they would be sure to giggle, — which they pro- 


98 


ORDER NO. 11 


ceeded now to do hysterically, just to prove that they 
were not past the stage. 

'' I know he ’ll be prim,” prophesied Virginia. 

'' Of course,” Sallie assented ; '' he could n’t be Miss 
Abby’s brother and not be prim. I suppose he will say, 
' I presume,’ and ' good afternoon,’ and maybe ' Toosday ’ 
and ' had n’t ought.’ ” 

Yes, and ^ I want to know ! ’ ” and Virginia drew 
down her brows and spoke the words with a voice so like 
Miss Abby’s that Sallie went into fresh convulsions. 
“ Well, you may look for me to spend most of this week 
at yo’-all’s house.” 

But she did not, as Sallie took occasion to remind her 
afterward. 

“ No,” Mrs. Trevilian was saying to Miss Nannie about 
the same time. I don’t really expect to enjoy the visit 
very much, but I want to be nice to Miss Abby’s brother. 
I suppose he will see the weak points in our Missouri 
farming, and tell us about them as Miss Abby does about 
my management.” 

They were out on the porch to meet him, leaving roar- 
ing fires and all sorts of good cheer inside. Virginia and 
Miss Nannie kept back in the doorway, and Mammy was 
taking a surreptitious peep from behind the parlor cur- 
tains. 

'' Is n’t he little ! ” whispered Virginia. But he is 
awfully handsome.” 

Dr. Cheever greeted Miss Abby affectionately, and ac- 
knowledged his presentation to Mrs. Trevilian with cour- 
teous cordiality. 

I am very glad to meet you, madam. I feel that I 
know you already from my sister’s letters, and most pleas- 
antly.” 

He had a cultured voice, and said madam ” like a 
Virginian, Miss Nannie was inwardly commenting. 
Where did he learn to do that? 


A -GROWN-UP MAN 


99 


'' Ah, Miss Trevilian,’’ and he bowed low over Miss 
Nannie's hand. Then he turned to the girl beside her, 
and, without waiting for an introduction, said : 

'' And this I am sure must be Miss Virginia— my sis- 
ter's—" assistant he was going to say in a spirit of rail- 
lery; but, remembering Miss Abby's grief at the fate of 
that venture, and having the tact that can spare its own 
flesh and blood,— a rare kind,— he finished—'' my sister's 
star pupil." 

Virginia blushed and somehow felt strangely imma- 
ture and underdone. 

When they were in the parlor he said : 

" Mrs. Trevilian, you have a beautiful place here. It 
reminds me of some of the old colonial homes on the At- 
lantic seaboard. Abby, you remember the old Williams 
place with the columns? This reminds me of it." 

" This was modeled after an old colonial home," Mrs. 
Trevilian said; "but not in your part of the country, I 
think." 

" Oh, but, I have been in Virginia," he exclaimed 
eagerly ; " I spent two teaching years there. I have seen 
Mount Vernon and Arlington House and Monticello. 
These columns are very familiar to me." 

"Oh, have you seen Monticello?" cried Miss Nannie. 
" Albemarle is our old home." 

It was an instant bond of sympathy between them. 

So the talk fell upon Virginia and its customs and 
people, about which they delighted to talk, and then 
turned to differing types of architecture, colonial and 
otherwise, in which their visitor led. Virginia listened 
with deepest interest. She had never thought before 
about there being any distinctive types of architecture. 
North or South. There was an eager give and take that 
put them at once upon an easy footing. Miss Nannie 
could not help contrasting it all with the first night Miss 
Abby was with them. 


lOO 


ORDER NO. 11 


When they sat down to the table Dr. Cheever ex- 
claimed like a boy: 

‘‘ Beaten biscuits ! I have n’t seen any since I was in 
Virginia,” — and they were at it again. 

Then Emmeline withdrew, nominally to replenish the 
plate, but really to report : “You won’t have to tell him 
what waffles is ! He ’s discoursin’ right now about beat 
biscuits an’ ole Figinny, an’ de white folks can’t beat him 
on ary one ! ” 

“ Colonel,” remarked Dr. Cheever when they had re- 
turned to the parlor, “ it seems to me you hear more of 
counties in Virginia and Missouri than in the North.” 

“ I ’ve noticed that,” said Miss Abby, with surprise. 

“ They always talk here about going over to Lafayette 
or to Cass when they really mean they are going to some 
town in Lafayette or Cass.” 

“ And Miss Trevilian has just said she was from Albe- 
marle County, Virginia, and that Dr. Lay, your neigh- 
bor, is from Fayette County, Kentucky.” 

“ But if he had been telling you, he would have said he 
was from near Lexington,” put in Miss Nannie, and the 
family smiled. Dr. Cheever smiled, too, in sympathy, 
though he did not see the point. 

“ I suppose the reason is that we of the South are an 
agricultural people, sir, and live largely on farms and 
plantations,” returned Colonel Trevilian. “We haven’t 
many cities in Missouri, as you Northern people count 
cities.” 

They were gathered around the big wood fire in the 
parlor now, Virginia on an ottoman at Miss Nannie’s side, 
over in the corner. Dr. Cheever, from his place in the 
center of the group, found his eyes wandering in her di- 
rection frequently. She took almost no part in the con- 
versation, except with her eyes ; but a sympathetic listener 
is sometimes the most agreeable companion, and Virginia 


A -GROWN-UP MAN 


lOI 


was listening with ear and eye. She was finding the talk 
of this grown-up gentleman, so well dressed, so self-pos- 
sessed and easy in his manner, so evidently a man of the 
world, intensely interesting. He had something to say 
and knew how to say it. 

'' I think perhaps there is an underlying reason a little 
deeper even than that, Colonel,” he was saying. - The 
two parts of the country were differently organized. You 
know that in New England the township was the unit of 
representation in the colonial legislature, but in Virginia 
it was not the parish that was the unit of representation, — 
it was the county.” 

The Colonel assented. He really had not thought of 
this before. 

“Well, that difference is very significant. As the po- 
litical life of New England was built up out of the political 
life of the towns, so the political life of Virginia was built 
up out of the political life of the counties. This was 
partly, as you say, because they were on plantations and 
those plantations were not grouped about a compact vil- 
lage nucleus like the small farms at the North, and partly, 
I am inclined to think, because there was never in Vir- 
ginia that Puritan theory of the church according to which 
each congregation is a self-governing democracy. Don’t 
you think there is something in that ? ” 

“ Undoubtedly,” returned the Colonel. “ I had n’t 
thought of it before in just that way, but I can see that 
there would be the difference that you suggest.” 

“ Yes. I studied it up a little when I was in Virginia. 
These sectional peculiarities interest me.” 

It was one of Dr. Cheever’s conversational charms that 
he was always saying things on any subject brought up 
that nobody had thought of before, but that they could 
see at once after he had talked three minutes about it. 
Some persons are strongest in their ability to inspire 


102 


ORDER NO. 11 


thought. The Colonel was thinking how pleasant it was 
to discuss in this broad way points of difference between 
North and South without having the everlasting subject 
of slavery lift its head. It could n^t be done with Miss 
Abby. 

'' That is a striking portrait you have there, Colonel,” 
the visitor remarked, looking up at old Colonel Trevilian 
of Albemarle above the mantle. 

'' My father, sir,” returned the Colonel, with pride. 
‘‘ Yes, sir, it is a fine picture— of a fine old country gen- 
tleman.” 

It reminds me of one I saw abroad. I forget just 
where that was,— but it was by an American artist, and 
was labeled ‘ A Colonial Gentleman.’ ” And the talk 
drifted to Europe and his travels. 

'' He certainly was changed in the cradle ! ” declared 
Miss Nannie when she and Virginia were up-stairs after 
an evening in which everybody had appeared at his best, 
and there was not time to say all the things clamoring to 
be said. The same mother never bore him and Miss 
Abby! He certainly is one of the most agreeable gen- 
tlemen I have ever met. Why, you would n’t know, ex- 
cept from his pronunciation, that he was not from Vir- 
ginia.” 

Perhaps it is because he has been abroad, Aunt 
Nan.” Virginia spoke almost in an awed tone. I never 
have seen anybody before that had been to Europe.” 

Neither have I. There are not many people that get 
to Europe, I can tell you.” 

But the same mother had borne them, impossible as it 
seemed. And the very things that had made Miss Abby 
what she was had made him what he seemed. 

Miss Abby was the eldest of a New England family, 
to whom bread and an education were the necessities of 
life,— butter, and the numberless little refinements whose 


A -GROWN-UP MAN" 


103 


sum total is culture, were its luxuries. In her rigid deter- 
mination that each Cheever in turn should have the first, 
the last had slipped from her own stiffening fingers. 

This brother was the youngest. He should have such 
advantages as she would have given her own right hand 
for. And so she had taught school to fit him for college ; 
she had scrimped and saved to help him through Yale; 
she had denied herself travel and alluring luxuries of 
every sort that he might study abroad when he had proved 
that it would be worth while; and she had done all this 
until saving and calculating had become to her second 
nature and an object in themselves. But the struggle, 
which had left her less lovable, perhaps, than she might 
have been had there been no struggle, had left him free to 
use his powers to the utmost. It is true that he had scru- 
pulously refunded to her the money advanced, but who 
can return the heart of a sacrifice, which is the life blood 
that has gone into it? 

But it had been a free-will offering. And she was hav- 
ing her reward to-night as she saw him holding his own 
in wit and repartee and graver themes with this old Vir- 
ginia family, between whom and herself there had always 
been an impalpable social barrier. Abiel was a match for 
them all, she was thinking. And Abiel was her idol. 


CHAPTER XI 


A CHAPTER OF BORDER HISTORY 

AS might have been expected, Dr. Cheever entered 
jL^ heartily into the life of the neighborhood, which was 
unusually gay at this Christmas season. A man of his 
adaptability could hardly fail to fit in anywhere. 

The first thing was a horseback ride over to Sallie 
Devereau’s, which was successfully accomplished after 
Dr. Cheever was once in the saddle. Virginia lost her awe 
of him during that ordeal, and was able to laugh and talk 
with him afterward, just as if he had always been a 
dweller on the prairie. 

When Sunday came, he innocently suggested (being 
quite in love with his new accomplishment) that he and 
Virginia ride ; but Virginia reminded him that it would 
hardly be fair for her to take him away from Miss Abby, 
and he agreed at once to go in the carriage if she would. 

You are crazy ! ’’ Virginia said to Miss Nannie, who 
privately urged her to ride if Dr. Cheever wanted to go 
that way,— even Miss Nannie had fallen under his spell. 

Do you suppose I am going to ride to church with 
anybody that has to have his horse brought up to the 
blocks ? Why, I would n’t hear the last of it for a year ! 
He gets into a carriage beautifully.” 

But at the church she thought with a concern she had 
never felt before of how it must all strike one who had 
seen all that Dr. Cheever had seen at home and abroad. 
If their guest felt any amusement, however, at the crudi- 

104 


BORDER HISTORY 


105 


ties of the little church, he was too well bred to disclose it 
by word or look. 

There were parties that week, and a wedding, and an 
infare the next day at the groom's house, and the Tre- 
vilians were kept busy with it all. 

During all this time there had never been a reference to 
the border troubles that had kept Missouri and Kansas in 
an uproar for the last five years, — such portions of the two 
States, at least, as had been adjacent. They all recognized 
that as a dangerous topic. And yet both gentlemen had 
felt a growing desire to talk it over before they parted ; 
for each felt sure now that he would have a reasonable 
person to talk to. 

It was the last day of Dr. Cheever's visit, and they were 
all seated around the open fire in Mrs. Trevilian’s room, 
which, after the custom of the country, was the general 
sitting-room, — all, that is, except Miss Abby, who was 
busy with school papers. 

I saw a man to-day, as we were coming home from 
Dr. Lay’s," said Dr. Cheever, thoughtfully, with half- 
closed eyes, “ that I am sure I have seen before." 

''Who was it?" asked Mrs. Trevilian. 

" What did you say his name was. Miss Virginia ? " 

" Emmons Baird," she replied, turning uncomfortably 
red. 

" Oh ! " said Miss Nannie. " An old friend of Vir- 
ginia’s." 

Her niece shot an indignant glance at her and frowned 
at her mother, giving imploring pinches meanwhile at her 
father’s arm as she leaned against him. She did not want 
Dr. Cheever to hear that story. 

" Emmons Baird," repeated Dr. Cheever, oblivious of 
this little family by-play. His eyes were closed now in 
his effort to fit name and face together. " I never heard 
of Ernmons Baird that I know of, but I am sure I have 


ro6 


ORDER NO. 11 


seen that face. It is not one to forget, now, is it ? He 
appealed to the Colonel. 

It is not,’’ his host replied. He was thinking of it as 
he saw it that day last fall. The white terror in it had 
stayed with him for days. Where do you think you 
have seen him ? ” 

In Kansas, unless I am greatly mistaken. I think he 
is one of a company that came in there in ’55. You know 
that about that time they were coming in from almost 
everywhere. I think this man was one of them.” 

'' Oh, I reckon not. Doctor*. At least, he is a slaveholder 
now. He bought a man and a woman soon after he came 
to this neighborhood. A man that had come out to make 
Kansas a free State would hardly do that.” 

‘‘ How long has he been in this neighborhood ? ” 

'' About a year and a half or two years. I can’t say 
exactly.” 

'' I think— I ’ve seen that man in Kansas,” Dr. Cheever 
insisted. Let — me — see — ” 

'' You have seen pretty much all of this Kansas-Mis- 
souri trouble, have n’t you, Doctor ? I think Miss Abby 
told me you were one of the first to go.” 

Yes, sir ; I was in the second company that got to 
Lawrence. The first one preceded us by about six weeks. 
They pitched their tents on the present site of Lawrence, 
August I, 1854.” 

“You did n’t lose much time,” remarked the Colonel, 
dryly. “ I believe the Kansas-Nebraska bill was signed 
only the May before.” 

“ Well, Colonel,” laughed Dr. Cheever, “ you people 
were so quick on the triggers that we did n’t have any 
time to lose. You were here before us, as it was.” 

“We entered the territory immediately, sir.” 

“ And we did as soon as we could get there.” 

They both laughed. They had wanted to do it all 


BORDER HISTORY 


107 


along, and now they were safely started. Miss Abby 
being away and Miss Nannie sitting with lips shut tight, 
they thought they could get through it all right. 

‘‘ It was a race,’^ said Colonel Trevilian ; “ and you 
beat us. That is about all there was to it.'’ 

Well, Colonel, you gave us a good run. There 's no 
denying that. I don't think you have anything to reproach 
yourselves with. At the spring election in 1855 you 
' polled more votes than there were voters in the State. 
You could n't hope to do more than that ! " And he threw 
back his head with a hearty laugh, in which they all 
joined. 

I don't deny it, sir ; I don't deny it. But we thought 
we were fighting the devil with fire. You were bound to 
have the State, and so were we." 

The trouble was. Colonel, that you took up only a vot- 
ing residence. If you had gone to stay, now, as we 
did-" 

I don't know about that. The impression prevailed 
here that yours was a fighting residence. You know there 
was a great dearth of women and agricultural implements 
in those companies." 

Is it true. Doctor, as we have heard," asked Mrs. Tre- 
vilian, '' that one company was sent out to Kansas from 
New England armed with Bibles and Sharpe's rifles, and 
told to use both ? " 

I believe it is," admitted Dr. Cheever. They were 
from New Haven, and were known as the ‘ rifle Chris- 
tians.' But that was later, Mrs. Trevilian, after it seemed 
necessary for them to control the polls and protect them- 
selves." 

‘‘We understood that both were presented by a min- 
ister of the gospel." 

“ Yes, they were— by Henry Ward Beecher." 

Miss Nannie shut her lips tight! 


xo8 


ORDER NO. 11 


You know what the inspecting officer said about the 
companies sent in by way of Nebraska after our patroi 
of the Missouri had barred them out that way ? ’’ asked 
Colonel Trevilian. 

What was that, Colonel ? 

He said, ^ I do not see many spinning-wheels sticking 
out of the wagons/ But he found a remarkable assort- 
ment of farming implements, sir,— muskets, carbines, 
sharp-shooters, revolvers, and ammunition. And these 
are the implements with which southeastern Kansas has 
been farmed for several years 1 You know that. Doctor. 
Well, such crops never fail.’’ 

'' No,” said Dr. Cheever, shaking his head ; '' and what 
is more, they follow the law of the harvest — which is 
increase.” 

They sat in silence a moment, and then Colonel Tre- 
vilian said : '' Doctor, whatever was the nature of the 
first emigration to Kansas, its character later was clearly 
warlike. You can’t gainsay that. And you can’t wonder 
that we felt alarmed. There are a hundred thousand 
slaves in Missouri, ten thousand of them in Jackson and 
Lafayette counties, and we are right here on the border. 
We fully believed that you had come down here to incite 
an insurrection, to arm them and get up a servile war. 
That threat was made on the streets of Weston, sir. You 
know John Brown was right here,— and he did his best. 
That affair on the Pottawatomie was a butchery ! ” 

Oh-h ! old John Brown ! ” exclaimed Miss Nannie, 
as if words were inadequate. 

Understand that I don’t indorse John Brown,” said 
Dr. Cheever, hastily. “ I believe the time will come when 
John Brown and his methods will be repudiated by his 
own party.” 

If we had had money enough,” continued Colonel 
Trevilian, who had been pursuing his own train of 


BORDER HISTORY 


109 


thought, we should have won. We could have brought 
our people here from the South just as you did from the 
North,— paid their way and made it an object for them 
to come. But then, we did n't have the money, so there 's 
no use talking about it." 

‘‘ Colonel,"— Dr. Cheever stopped and then went on 
valiantly, — it was not the money you lacked." 

“ You think it was a high moral purpose? " asked Mrs. 
Trevilian, smiling. 

V I did n't say that. I would not dare to, with Miss 
Nannie sitting so close." 

No ! " she said, shaking her head at him ; '' you 'd 
better not ! " 

I did n't ! and I 'm not going to ! Would you. Miss 
Virginia ? " 

She shook her head. No." Adding coaxingly : ‘‘ Go 
on ! I love to hear you and father talk." 

I don't know about all that," said Colonel Trevilian, 
returning to the charge. I concede to you, Dr. Cheever, 
and men like you, the highest possible motive in giving 
up your life in the East and coming here to Kansas. I 
think you were wrong, but I trust I am not so unac- 
quainted with principle myself that I cannot recognize it 
in other men—" 

Dr. Cheever with a sudden impulse extended his hand. 

Thank you. Colonel," he said with much earnestness. 

Colonel Trevilian took the offered hand in^a cordial 
clasp. It seemed almost like a pledge of friendship, come 
what might. 

“You are all right, my boy!" he said heartily; “you 
are all right 1— from your point of view. Of course you 
were born on the wrong side of the line to get the right 
point of view. But I tell you. Doctor, all the men that 
have come to Kansas are not of your stamp." 

“ Probably not. I know, in fact, that the later con? 


no 


ORDER NO. 11 


panics were not always selected with much care. Indeed, 
it would have been impossible to discriminate and weed 
out undesirable persons.'' 

Yes, but when you put a money motive before men 
for allying themselves with a movement, and at the same 
time give them the shelter of a high moral purpose, it is 
not surprising if unprincipled men take advantage of it. 
And some unprincipled men came out with those compa- 
nies. That I know. Now you take this man Tigerman, 
for instance, right here in this neighborhood. He came 
out with one of these very companies that you were speak- 
ing of — those that took in ' rag, tag, and bobtail.' " 

I don't remember that I said quite that — " began Dr. 
Cheever. 

No, but I did. Now, Tigerman had his expenses 
paid out here to settle in Kansas. But when he got to 
Kansas City he looked over into the territory and found 
it bare and rather poor picking, and then over into Mis- 
souri, where the farms were well stocked and the farmers 
prosperous, and he forgot his cause and dropped down 
here. What do you think of that?" 

. I hope he will stay. Kansas is better off without 
him." 

'' I hope he will go. Missouri does n't want him. . . . 
Then there is Emmons Baird. You say you are pretty 
sure he belonged to a company that came out to make 
Kansas a free State. And he is here now— a slaveholder ! 
I tell you such men have no principle — or, if they have, it 
is of the quicksilver variety. You never can put your 
finger on it ! They are in the free-State movement or 
any other movement for what they can get out of it. 
Now, to my mind," he continued thoughtfully, there 
are three kinds of men in Kansas : men of honor like 
yourself, actuated by the most exalted humanitarian prin- 
ciple— I concede that they are there, and I am glad they 


BORDER HISTORY iii 

are, for God knows they are needed; then, second, there 
are men of the John Brown stripe — fanatics, sir, with 
principle of a certain kind, perhaps, but no sense to bal- 
ance it,— and a fanatical fool is always a dangerous man; 
then, last and worst, blatherskites like Tigerman, who 
have sense of a certain kind, but no principle to balance 
it. They may not all be bad men now, either ; but men 
without fixed principles are always in danger of becoming 
bad men, and dangerous men, if the opportunity comes. 
Strengthen your own class. Doctor ; for if the John 
Browns and the Tigermans ever come to the front, they 
will give Kansas a black eye that she will not get over in 
a day ! '' 

I suppose there are bad men everywhere,'’ Dr. 
Cheever remarked reflectively. 

“ Yes ; but you 'll find more where they are rushed in 
for a purpose, with pecuniary rewards in plain sight, — 
you thought so when we went over to help you vote,— 
and it is all the worse when they are under a banner 
dubbed ‘ Philanthropy.' We called ours plain ^ Self- 
interest.' " 

'' I suppose it is hard to say just which side has been 
the most to blame in this dreadful border warfare," said 
Mrs. Trevilian. 

Yes, Mrs. Trevilian, it is hard to get down to the real 
beginning of a war of retaliation; and from first to last 
this Missouri-Kansas trouble has been of that kind — 
though I know many people in the East who could not be 
persuaded that that is true. But I think it is over. I be- 
lieve the peace they celebrated down here at Fort Scott 
last summer will be a lasting one." 

“ I hope so, from the bottom of my heart," said Colo- 
nel Trevilian. But yon mark my zvords, Doctor,"— he 
raised his finger and punctuated his utterances with it, — 
'' if war, with its opportunities and its temptations to un- 


II2 


ORDER NO. 11 


bridled license, should ever come, and men of the Tiger- 
man stripe get the whip-hand in Kansas — God save the 
State! '' 

'' And God save the border! ’’ said Mrs. Trevilian, with 
sudden prescience. 

They sat in silence a few moments, and then Colonel 
Trevilian said : 

“ I suppose you have seen some stormy times in Kansas, 
Doctor ? '' 

I have, indeed. And it is not entirely over yet. There 
is still a good deal of lawlessness. It is better than it was ; 
but life is pretty cheap. . . . But, Colonel, one of the 
strangest things I have come across— one of the hardest 
to unravel— is going on there right now. Do you know, 
there is a mysterious somebody going around that country 
putting his mark on this man, and that, and the other, — 
and when the mark is there the man is gone! None of 
them live to tell the tale.'’ 

And that mark ? ” asked the Colonel, with interest. 

“ Is a bullet-hole in the center of the forehead. It never 
varies. And I suppose I Ve seen a dozen of those men." 

Virginia was leaning against her father from the ot- 
toman which was her favorite seat. She sat up now, and 
looked at the speaker with fascinated eyes which dilated 
and darkened as she listened. 

“ This must be what Dr. Lay was telling us about, 
father!" 

Undoubtedly. I think he said it had been going on 
for several years, from what he could hear." 

Yes, sir ; the first that I ever heard of it was four 
years ago this winter, in 1856. A man was found dead 
out on the prairie west of town. I was called to examine 
him. It seemed a peculiar case to me then, because it was 
such a clean piece of work. Well, sir, in about two 
months I was called again to examine a man discovered 


BORDER HISTORY 


ii3 

in the woods not far away. It was exactly such a case. 
A single bullet had pierced the brain. Since then the 
cases have multiplied until it positively seems almost dan- 
gerous to live in the community.'' 

'' Is it always in the vicinity of Lawrence ? " 

No, not always. I heard the other day of a victim 
found two or three counties away. The man had left 
Lawrence because he was afraid to stay. But his enemy 
found him out." 

'' Is there no clue to it at all?" asked Mrs. Trevilian. 

'' No-o, you can't really say there is a clue to the 
murderer, but a strange coincidence has been noticed that 
may lead to a clue." 

What is that?" asked Colonel Trevilian. 

Well, at first there were no data to go upon at all. 
For all one could tell it was merely chance that chose each 
victim— young or old, rich or poor, married or single, it 
was all the same. That shut out the idea that it was from 
the ordinary motives that prompt such deeds. It could n't 
have been jealousy, for some of those men were middle- 
aged men of family. It evidently was not for robbery, for 
the men's pockets were always unrified." 

Remarkable! " ejaculated the Colonel. 

After a while it was noticed that every man killed 
was a Kansan— a free-State man, I mean." 

“A-ha!" said Colonel Trevilian, thoughtfully. ‘Ms 
it supposed that this is the work of the Missourians in 
Kansas, sir? " 

'' No, Colonel ; I think that is not held by anybody now. 
There was some feeling at first that it might be, but there 
is absolutely no evidence to prove it. In fact, no set of 
men among us have done more to ferret this thing out 
than the Missourians. It is clearly the work of one man, 
or a combination of men actuated by the same purpose 
and having attained the same skill in the use of the re- 
8 


ORDER NO. 11 


114 

volver,--and that is a consummate skill! My own idea 
is that it is the work of a monomaniac— a man insane on 
this one subject. Still—’’ 

He stopped. 

Well ? ” queried the Colonel. 

I was going to say that one thing which would give 
color to the theory that it is the work of the pro-slavery 
faction is that every man found dead has been discovered, 
by tracing the thing back, to have been identified with a 
band of jayhawkers that a few years ago went around 
Kansas doing pretty deadly work, I guess, from what I 
can hear.” 

H’m ! That looks bad.” The Colonel shook his 
head. '' I sincerely hope the pro-slavery men would not 
carry their retaliation to such a length as that. Does this 
band still exist ? ” 

No, sir ; they disbanded some time ago, I am told, and 
have scattered— possibly because the observation had been 
made that the victims were all from among their number.” 

It is a very strange case,” said Colonel Trevilian, — 
very strange, indeed.” 

“ You don’t know whether this man Baird ever lived 
in Kansas?” asked Dr. Cheever, irrelevantly. 

Colonel Trevilian thought not. He had come here from 
Virginia, it was said, though nobody seemed to know 
much about him or his antecedents. They talked very 
little about their affairs, — were quite close-mouthed, in 
fact. Why? 

“ Oh, nothing,” Dr. Cheever returned. I just had a 
little curiosity about the man. I can’t get his face out of 
my mind.” 

Aunt Nan does n’t believe he is a Virginian, Dr. 
Cheever,” said Virginia, mischievously. ‘‘ Tell him why. 
Aunt Nan.” 

'' He may be,” said Miss Nannie ; '' but I have never 


BORDER HISTORY 


115 

seen a Virginian before that said ' had n’t ought.’ Have 
you, Dr. Cheever ? ” 

'' Never ! ” he laughed. '' You have us there, certainly.” 

“ And I ’ve never seen one that could n’t bound his own 
county, either.” 

I wish I could see this man and talk with him,” Dr. 
Cheever said, after a pause. I believe I could tell whe- 
ther he is a Virginian, from his speech. And maybe I 
could tell some other things.” 

From his speech?” asked Virginia. 

Yes,” he said dryly. '' If I could make him speak 
long enough.” 

Then he rose. 

Come, Miss Virginia ; let ’s go for a farewell gallop. 
Miss Nannie, I can actually get up now without a stump. 
I had to give Jake a dollar, though, to get back his re- 
spect after having my horse led up to the blocks. But 
I ’m learning— a good many things.” 

Ten minutes later they were cantering gaily down the 
road toward Dr. Lay’s for a last call. 

Aunt Nan,” said Virginia that night as they were un- 
dressing,— she was so under the influence of the Kansas 
story that she would not sleep alone,— “ I have the strang- 
est feeling about what Dr. Cheever was telling us. . . . 
I feel perfectly sure that in some way that man (I know 
it is just one) is going to come into our lives! Do you 
suppose it is a presentiment ? ” 

No 1 ” returned Miss Nannie, with emphasis. It ’s 
biliousness! You need a blue-mass pill. Your liver is 
out of order.” 

Aunt Nan ! ” Virginia spoke indignantly. “ You 
know you have always said I did n’t have any liver ! ” 

Well, you are getting one— to talk like that ! Or 
else you have enlargement of the imagination ! There is 


ORDER NO. 11 


kX6 

not much difference between the two. You have been 
reading too many of Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth’s 
stories, or Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.’s. I ’ll put you on a course 
of calomel and Baxter’s ‘ Saints’ Rest.’ That will hit 
both!” 

Virginia clothed her soul with a garment of dignified 
silence, but her last waking thought was : 

He will 1 I know he will 1 ” 


CHAPTER XII 


A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH 

ABOUT ten days after Dr. Cheever went back to Kan- 
XTL sas, Gordon Lay — away off in Lexington, Kentucky 
— was reading a letter written in a running feminine hand 
and dated “ Keswick.'’ It said : 

'' I am sure you will want to know all about what sort 
of a time we had Christmas, when Miss Abby’s brother 
was here, and what we thought of him, so I ‘ take my pen 
in hand,' etc., to tell you all about it. 

You know we expected to have a perfectly funereal 
time at Christmas, with you and brother gone. Of course 
we were sad when we thought of you ; but I don't think 
I ever had a nicer time in my life. That 's pleasant for 
a starter! " said Gordon.] If all grown-up men are like 
Dr. Cheever, Sallie and I feel that we just can't wait for 
Richmond and Lexington to come. I know Sallie has 
told you what we did and where we went, so I will tell 
you all about Dr. Cheever. I am sure that will interest 
you more than anything else I could write. [Gordon 
gave a grunt, and turned the pages of the letter over. 
‘‘ Cheever to the end— confound him 1 "] 

Well, to begin with, he is very small, but exceed- 
ingly handsome. I never thought before that I could 
possibly like a small man, but after you know him well 
you hardly think of his being small. He says he thinks 
men grow too large in the West,— larger, that is, than 
they were intended to be. And I don't know but they 

127 


ORDER NO. 11 


1 18 

do. I can think now of a good many that seem too tall, 
really. Father asked him if he did not think that in New 
England they might be a little under size, but he thinks 
not. If he is small in stature, he certainly is not in brain. 
He is the most intelligent man I ever saw in my life. 
Why, he seems to know something about everything. 
Aunt Nan says he is what old Mrs. Tolies would call ^ a 
phenomena by natur’.’ And she was n’t making fun, 
either. Aunt Nan thinks he is awfully nice. Oh, he ’s 
got them all if Miss Nannie thinks he is nice,” groaned 
Gk)rdon.] 

'' There is one funny thing about him, though. He 
does n’t know how to ride ! Or at least he did n’t when 
he came. I gave him riding-lessons while he was here, 
and he got along splendidly. We kept the horses saddled 
most of the time, and when there was nothing else to do 
we went riding. He was so anxious to learn ! Does n’t 
it seem funny to think of a man that can’t ride ? I always 
supposed they knew by instinct. I never heard before of 
anybody’s having to learn. But he says they don’t ride 
much in New England, — they go in buggies. 

Dr. Cheever thinks I am an excellent teacher, but 
severe. That ’s what he said. I suppose it was because 
I told him I positively zvould not go with him again until 
he learned to mount from the ground. You see, the first 
time we went riding, Jake brought the horses out, and 
we were on the horse-blocks, and Dr. Cheever did n’t 
make any motion to bring my horse up, and so I told Jake 
to do it. And then Dr. Cheever seemed sort of helpless, 
and Jake looked wild, and I suppose father thought some- 
body ought to do something, 'SO he told Jake to lead Dr. 
Cheever’s horse up to the blocks, — and he did. Every- 
body was very grave ; but when I looked back, father had 
gone straight to the house, and I could see Aunt Nan 
going off into conniptions behind the Venetian bUnds, 


A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH 119 

and I thought Jake would have a fit ! He was just doubled 
up! 

‘‘ But Dr. Cheever never knew a word of it. Pie was 
too busy holding Milo in. You know, Gordon, Milo is 
the pokiest old thing on the place! Well, we were going 
over to your father's, and I kept wondering how in the 
world I would get him in the saddle again. I knew we 
would have a perfectly delightful call, and that they 
would be charmed with him,— as they were,— but I did 
dread the scene at the horse-blocks. I told Sallie about 
it on the sly, and, do you know, she got us out of it in the 
slickest way 1 She is too cute for anything 1 Dr. Cheever 
did n't know what she was up to, and neither did I till it 
was over. 

I got on my horse — I was n't going to help him if 
he never got up ! But Sallie switched Milo around, made 
a bow, and said with a great show of ceremony : 

^ Allow me. Dr. Cheever 1 This is the way v/e do in the 
West.' And there was the horse ready for him to mount 
from the blocks, and everybody laughing at Sallie. Ain't 
she cute? Well, I tell you, it saved the day! I told him 
on the way home that if he was going to ride with me, he 
simply had to learn to mount from the ground ; that Milo 
would let a baby climb up his legs into the saddle ; and he 
could take him down in the pasture, where nobody could 
see, and practise till he learned. I suppose it was severe, 
but it had to be done 1 Now he gets up as well as any- 
body — almost. 

[Gordon was beginning to take more interest in the 
subject. This letter wasn't bad.] 

I suppose you will be thinking from all this that Dr. 
Cheever does n't amount to much. [And he was.] But 
when I tell you that he is small and can't ride, I have told 
you the very worst. He is a perfectly delightful man to 
talk to. He makes you think things. You see, he is so 


120 


ORDER NO. 11 


well up in books and everything of that kind. He has 
been laying out a course of reading for me, and is going 
to send me the books when he gets home. Gordon, could 
you lay out a course of reading for a girl ? I don’t believe 
you could. I never even heard you intimate that you 
thought I needed a course of reading. But Dr. Cheever 
is so cultivated in that line. 

Then he has traveled so much, and can tell so many 
interesting things about the places he has seen. That 
makes a man such charming company, you know. He 
thinks I ought to go to Boston for my finishing year — 
says I would have better advantages there than in Rich- 
mond— in art and all those things. But I don’t believe a 
word of it, do you? I don’t believe Boston is ahead of 
Richmond in anything, I told him so, and he just 
laughed. 

Dr. Cheever talks beautifully about art. He has told 
me things about pictures and statuary that I never 
dreamed of. Mother says it is a liberal education to live 
in the house with him. Oh, they ’ve all got it! ” inter- 
polated Gordon.] Everybody likes him, even the ser- 
vants. He certainly knows how to make friends. He is 
not a bit like Miss Abby. He put his shoes out to be 
blacked the first morning he was here, and now they have 
some respect for him. The second morning he put a 
quarter in the shoes, Liz says. 

He seems really fond of Miss Abby. Isn’t it funny? 
Of course I like Miss Abby and think she is a good 
teacher, and all that, but I don’t really see how anybody 
could be fond of her. There does n’t seem to be anything 
to catch hold of. But he is so different 1 

Well, this is a long letter, but I knew you would want 
to know all about Dr. Cheever, and what we thought of 
him. Write soon. As ever. 


'' Virginia. 


A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH 121 


P. S. Dr. Cheever thinks he will not always remain 
in Kansas. He has told me so much about Boston, and 
it makes me feel so differently about the place from the 
way I used to feel. I encourage him to go back there. 
[If Gordon had been a swearing man, he would certainly 
have sworn at this. ‘ Encourage him to go back ! ’ ’’ 
What concern of hers was it where he went?] 


“P.S. No. 2. 
missed you. 


I forgot to tell you how much we 

ViRGE. 


P. S. No. 3. It seems that I will never get through. 
I just wanted to add that Dr. Cheever is coming over to 
see Miss Abby again in about a month. He thinks the 
books will be here by then. He says it is so near that he 
thinks he will come over often and see how she is getting 
along. He seems to be such a good brother. 

« V. T.’" 


When Gordon finished reading this letter, he sat a long 
time tugging at his mustache, which had recently come. 
He felt so hopelessly young. 


CHAPTER XIII 


LIVING PICTURES IN THE OLDEN TIME 

I T takes so short a time for a year to roll by! Almost 
before the winter was begun at Keswick it was gone, 
and the spring was like unto it. Now, June roses were 
blooming, and the boys were coming home 1 

It always seemed on Grand Prairie, when the young 
people were scattered in the fall, that '' the mirth of the 
land was gone ’’ ; but it was renewed tempestuously with 
the home-coming. Always, for the first day, two of that 
quartet looked at each other shyly, noting the changes that 
the year had wrought and waiting to see whether this tall 
young man with a hint of beard were really Gordon, and 
the young lady in crinoline and lengthened skirts the 
Virge of old. But it never took more than a day, nor so 
long for Beverly and Sallie. 

They always rushed at each other, took one critical look, 
and then stood off, Beverly saying anxiously : 

“ Sallie, don’t you think your hair is just one shade 
redder than it was ? ” 

At which Miss Devereau would lift her crown of au- 
burn locks and say sweetly : 

I should know you anywhere, Beverly, by your man- 
ners and your freckles. It is too bad they don’t teach 
elimination and substitution in your school.” She added 
one day : '' I would use buttermilk and tansy if I were 
you. It ’s very good.” 

Have you used it ? ” he asked with interest ; and the 


122 


LIVING PICTURES 


123 

unsuspecting Sallie walked straight into the trap and said, 

Yes often/' 

“ Then I think I 'll try the other thing," he remarked 
quietly, with a look at her complexion, which went natu- 
rally with red hair. 

They were always sparring at each other, but could 
never keep apart. Mrs. Trevilian used to look at them 
sometimes and wonder what the future had in store for 
them. Sallie was a dear child 1 

I do hope the boat won’t strike a sand-bar," Sallie 
was saying just now to Virginia, as the two sat pasting 
gilt stars on the crown of Night which had been fitted to 
Virginia's head, and on the filmy veil that was to accom- 
pany it. It will be perfectly dreadful if they don't get 
here for the tableaux, for we 've saved the very best ones 
that need men for them." 

“ Oh, they will get here. It is nearly time for the June 
rise. There are no sand-bars now." 

I 'm sure I hope so," said Miss Nannie from the side 
of the bed, where she was cutting out Ahasueruss robe of 
royal purple. '' This is too long for anybody but Beverly. 
Virginia, if you are through you can be basting the spots 
on this ermine." 

They were deep in the manufacture of royal robes, 
for the school year was to end with such an exhibition 
as the neighborhood had never known. 

John Pasco and Ike Swamscott were already wres- 
tling with Brutus and Cassius, whom they were ex- 
pected to do up in the most approved style. There 
were no misgivings about their undertaking what in 
later years was to call forth the best efforts of two giants 
of the boards. Grand Prairie was not critical in mat- 
ters pertaining to the drama, having no standards by 
which to judge or be judged. 

Virginia's part was a finished essay — remarkably deep, 


124 


ORDER NO. 11 


Miss Abby said— on The Seasons of the Heart/’ 
Dear child! to whom life had been all spring. She 
had got the title from the back of Quackenbos’s Rhet- 
oric/’ and evolved the contents from her inner conscious- 
ness. 

Sallie was expecting to score a triumph in ‘‘ The 
Maniac.” She practised it nightly before the glass, roll- 
ing her eyes in the fine frenzy that maniacs are supposed 
to maintain, and wailing effectively at the end of each 
stanza : 

I am not mad ! I am not mad 1 ” 

Miss Abby had rather objected to this selection as un- 
suited to the time and place, but Sallie had heard it down 
in Fulton at a school exhibition, and she pleaded so 
hard to be allowed to try her hand on it that Miss Abby 
gave in. Sallie proposed to have it with all the acces- 
sories, and hunted up an old piece of log-chain which 
she contrived to have manacled around her tender wrists, 
as no maniac has had done since the days of Miss Doro- 
thea Dix. But that Sallie did not know. 

The principal interest of the exhibition, however, cen- 
tered in the tableaux. These were something new in the 
neighborhood, and were invested with unusual charm 
because they necessitated a curtain. Even sheets drawn 
back and forth with but indifferent success give an air 
of mystery to a performance which is delightfully stimu- 
lating, though Mr. McTavish, who was Scotch-Irish, did 
object to the sheets on the ground that they were just 
like the theayter. 

As this gentleman of Scotch-Irish extraction was an 
elder, and his consent to the curtain was desirable, if 
not, indeed, necessary, it seemed that there might be a 
hitch until Miss Nannie suggested the borrowing of 
two of the McTavishes for a tableau. 

“ If they hesitate,” she said to Virginia, who was sent 


LIVING PICTURES 


125 

on the errand, tell Mrs. McTavish we want the prettiest 
children on the prairie for ‘ Early Piety.’ ” 

Miss Nannie knew the human heart. When this mes- 
sage was delivered to the mother she capitulated, and 
even agreed to bring Mr. McTavish around. 

You say all they ’ve got to do is to kneel down by 
the one that ’s actin’ the mother, like they was sayin’ 
their prayers? Well! there shorely can’t be anything 
wrong in that I ” And the happy choice of actors and 
subject won the day. 

The good lady circulated it industriously around the 
neighborhood that Mr. McTavish he did n’t really be- 
lieve in tablux ” (she had learned it that way long ago, 
and, being Scotch, could n’t unlearn it) ; but they 
said over to the school that they just had to have the 
prettiest young ones on the prairie, and so their pa he 
give in.” 

Prettiest young ones, indeed 1 ” exclaimed Mrs. Ti- 
german, when this was repeated to her. Everybody 
knows them young ones ain’t as pretty as mine ! But, 
of course,”— with the injured air of one who has a 
grievance always on tap,— ''the Trevilians would n’t 
want my children for their show 1 ” 

The indifference of the Trevilians to her and hers was 
the " Mordecai at the king’s gate ” to Mrs. Tigerman. 

The tableaux had been Miss Nannie’s suggestion, and 
she threw herself, heart and soul, into their successful 
presentation. She sent for Matt Dawson to come out 
from Independence to help, and the Trevilian garret was 
ransacked. Silks and brocades were brought out that had 
not seen the light since Miss Nannie had worn them in 
Richmond. 

They went over one day to see the Bascom girls and 
find out what could be secured there. These ladies, Miss 
Tiny and Miss Tony, were verging upon fifty, but they 


126 


ORDER NO. 11 


were always called the Bascom girls/’ because they had 
been girls once and had never changed their state. 

They enjoyed a distinction all their own in the primi- 
tive community from the fact that they had a brother 
in the regular army. That seemed to set them apart 
from everybody else, even in a community where every 
fourth man was a colonel or a major or at least a captain. 
The Mexican War had left behind it a goodly number 
of officers — so many, in fact, that one could not help 
wondering sometimes why all the mortality had been 
among the privates or non-commissioned ; but a brother 
in the regular army— that was different. 

There were other things that helped to put the Bascom 
girls in has relief, as it were. In the first place, they were 
Episcopalians, and the only ones on the prairie. And 
then they were so intensely Virginian. Many in the 
neighborhood were from the Old Dominion, it is true; 
but most of them had occasional lapses of memory in 
regard to it. Not so Miss Tiny and Miss Tony. 

They never forgot. They never allowed anybody else 
to forget. Of course, Jackson County was a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey in comparison with their native 
State. But it was not Virginia, they mourned. They 
had come to the West because their brother George, with 
whom they made their home in the helpless fashion of the 
age, had chosen to migrate. They came under protest; 
they remained under protest. They buried their brother 
in Missouri, feeling that it was foreign soil, and they said 
of themselves passionately, as did Jacob of old, “ Bury me 
with my fathers.” 

Each sister had put away in a secure place the money 
that would insure her a final resting-place in Virginia’s 
sacred soil. (Beverly, the scamp, called it their ‘'post- 
mortem transportation.”) Each had taken a vow of the 
other, as did Joseph of the children of Israel, saying, 


LIVING PICTURES 127 

'' God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my 
bones from hence/’ 

Even the Bascom girls got out their relics for the 
Grand Prairie tableaux, contributing a cherished suit of 
the colonel who was in the regular army. 

'' I hope you won’t ask for the sword, my dear,” said 
Miss Tiny, firmly, seeing Miss Nannie’s eyes fastened 
covetously on that sheathed weapon above the mantel. 
‘‘ That was presented to our brother Jeems for bravery 
at Buena Vista. He hung it there with his own hands, 
and sister and I have sworn that it shall never come 
down.” 

Oh, certainly not,” said Miss Nannie, hastily. I 
should n’t think of such a thing. I would not ask for 
the suit for anybody but Gordon Lay. But he will be 
here in time for the tableaux, and we do need the epau- 
lets so.” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Tiny. Gordon is a gentlemanly 
lad. His father is a Kentuckian, I believe, but he is a 
very nice man.” 

In spite of it,” laughed Matt Dawson, a moment 
later, when the two sisters had pattered off to the garret 
to get the suit. Matt was also a Kentuckian. 

Several little complications had arisen about the cast 
of characters. 

Of course they had “ Rebecca Offering the Jewels to 
Rowena.” A set of tableaux in that day without that 
particular one would have seemed as incomplete as living 
pictures to-day without a Gibson girl. When it came 
to disposing of the characters, everybody could see at 
once who should be the Lady Rowena. Lois Chandler, 
^he girl with the golden hair, was of the pure Saxon 
type. 

But she has nobody to fix her up,” objected Miss 
Abby, as they considered the matter one night in family 


128 


ORDER NO. 11 


conclave. Lois’s mother was dead, and she would have 
been no good at tableaux if she had been living. 

She would make a magnificent Rowena” mused Miss 
Nannie. I think we will have to have her. I will 
fix her up myself — in my blue satin, with a string of 
pearls around her neck.” 

“ The blue satin you wore to the governor’s ball. Aunt 
Nan? Oh, won’t she be stunning! ” and Miss Abby cor- 
rected her for her misuse of language. 

'' It is n’t a misuse,” persisted Virginia. I can just 
see her now ! She ’ll be perfectly gorgeous. Miss Abby.” 

When it came to Rebecca, there was a balk. Rene 
Taggart would have done finely for a Jewess, but Rene 
was long ago out of the ring. Mollie Driscoll agreed 
to take the part until she learned that Rebecca would 
have to kneel at the feet of the Saxon beauty. 

‘‘ Do you suppose I ’m going to kneel to that Chand- 
ler girl?” she said indignantly to Virginia. ‘'Well, I 
think I see myself! Why can’t Rowena kneel to Re- 
becca? ” 

There was a derisive shout at this from the lovers 
of Scott, and Mollie turned off in deep resentment. 

It ended in Virginia, who was a brunette and had no 
scruples of dignity about doing anything that needed to 
be done, being Rebecca. 

“ Virge, I am glad you have some sense ! ” said Miss 
Nannie. “ I hate these people that are always pulling 
back.” But she found that Virginia could pull back when 
the tim.e came. 

The boys got there four days before the exhibition, — 
long enough for needed rehearsals and several delightful 
scampers around the neighborhood together on urgent 
errands. Virginia was glad that her essay was finished 
even to putting in the blue ribbons, for there was pre- 
cious little time for anything now. 


LIVING PICTURES 


129 


Gordon and Beverly looked quite metropolitan in their 
clothes of newest cut, and both had taken on the inde- 
scribable something which betokened that childish things 
were put away forever now. Beverly looked quite set- 
tled, Sallie said. And Gordon ! 

“What do you think of it, anyway ?’' she asked Vir^ 
ginia. “ The mustache, I mean.'’ 

They had all gone down to the grape-vine tree. 

The two girls were swinging gently back and forth, 
Beverly at their feet and Gordon standing with his hand 
on the old vine that had seen them all grow up. 

Sallie spoke as impersonally as if she were discussing 
a graven image. 

“ I like it," returned Virginia, as frankly, looking 
straight into Sallie's eyes. “ It makes him look almost 
like a grown-up man." And she flashed a mocking look 
at the owner of the mustache. 

He raised his hat. “ Ah-h ! Perhaps when he has a 
full beard he may be able to suggest a book for a young 
lady to read." 

“ What are you two talking about ? " said Sallie. 

Of course they had “ Pocahontas Saving the Life of 
John Smith." That was a foregone conclusion. Vir- 
ginia was to be the Indian maiden ; Gordon, the redoubt- 
able John; and Beverly, Powhatan. Almost the whole 
school were braves or squaws of assorted sizes. Every- 
body wanted to be wild for once. All went well till 
the time of rehearsal came. Then Virginia, with a sud- 
den realization of the embarrassment of Pocahontas' s 
position, declined to save anybody unless it could be 
Beverly. 

“Virginia Trevilian, how silly!" cried Miss Nannie 
in exasperation. She had taken her off in a corner to 
reason with her, while Beverly lowered his tomahawk and 


130 


ORDER NO. 11 


Gordon sat up, never once looking toward the corner. 
''Why, Gordon Lay is just like your brother!’’ 

"Aunt Nan,” said Virginia, "I’m not going to do 
it! Now!” 

And Miss Nannie knew she would n’t. 

With Beverly for the endangered captain, Virginia 
played Pocahontas with the utmost abandon ; and Gordon 
Lay, standing over them with the tomahawk, wished he 
were John Smith, but liked Virginia all the better because 
he was not. 


CHAPTER XIV 


SELECT READINGS 



‘HE church was packed. It was not often that any- 


X thing approaching a “ theayter was to be seen on 
Grand Prairie. The word had gone forth that this might 
be mistaken for it, and the rumor of curtains and sheeted 
dressing-rooms piqued curiosity. Everybody was there. 

The exhibition was almost over, — and over with credit. 
Sadie’s '' Maniac ” was magnificent. It scared the young 
McTavishes almost into fits. Rebecca and Rowena had 
set more than two manly hearts to thumping with their 
ravishing beauty. 

Colonel Trevilian and Dr. Lay sat side by side and 
congratulated each other, as the entertainment progressed, 
that they had such an up-to-date teacher. This would 
make next year’s patronage certain. 

But the end was not yet. Miss Abby had prepared a 
pleasant surprise for the people of Grand Prairie. 

The last number on the program was “ Come to the 
Old Oak Tree.” As the rhythmic notes rolled on with a 
swing and a dash that set all the young feet in the church 
to keeping time. Miss Abby was having a last whispered 
word in the dressing-room with Lois Chandler, in white 
muslin and blue ribbons. 

You are sure you can do it? ” 

Oh, yes ! ” cried Lois, in pleased anticipation. She 
had said to Beverly at the door, where they had stopped 
to talk: You just wait! You’ll be surprised at some- 
thing 1 ” There was such a note of exultation in her voice 


132 ORDER NO. 11 

that Beverly had been wondering all evening what she 
meant. 

When the song ended, the singers took their places in 
the audience, Miss Nannie and Matt Dawson went to 
folding up dresses behind the curtain, and Miss Abby 
stepped to the front. 

I thought this was to be the last,'’ whispered Gordon 
to Virginia. 

'' Why, it was ! I don't— Hush ! " 

For Miss Abby was speaking. 

Ladies and gentlemen : " — 

Mr. Singleton had announced the program, and the 
sound of a woman's voice was most startling in a com- 
munity long used to the dictum : “ Let your women keep 
silence in the churches." Miss Nannie stopped to listen. 

Ladies and gentlemen : Our program will conclude 
with a few select readings from a book that is read 
to-day throughout the civilized world,— one that has 
been translated into many languages, and bids fair to 
rival the Bible in its circulation. Miss Lois Chandler will 
give you a few choice selections from ' Uncle Tom's 
Cabin!'" 

'' Uncle Tom's Cabin ! " a book that was to the South 
at that time like a red rag to a bull ! 

''Well, did you ever!” said Miss Nannie, dropping 
the blue satin and sitting down on the pulpit steps. 

If a bomb-shell had exploded in Hickory Grove church 
there might have been more danger, but not greater sur- 
prise. There was hardly a man in that audience that was 
not a slave-owner, and up-stairs in the gallery, enjoying 
the exhibition to the full, were the slaves. 

There was a hush that presages a storm, and then Mr. 
Caldwell and his family, who were from South Carolina, 
rose and marched out. Mr. Pasco followed suit. But 
most of them stood fire— possibly because they had, deep 


SELECT READINGS 


133 

in their hearts, a curiosity to know how it would turn 
out and what the '' readings ’’ would be. 

Did you know anything about this ? ” asked Dr. Lay 
of Colonel Trevilian. 

Certainly not ! he said sternly. The woman is be- 
side herself ! 

But there was method in Miss Abby^s madness. She 
had thought out this plan with her accustomed thorough- 
ness. She looked upon Uncle Tom's Cabin " as the 
book of the century; and she had discovered with un- 
bounded astonishment that it was not read in the South, 
—at least in this part of it. She had not found on all 
Grand Prairie one person that had given it a hearing ex- 
cept Dr. Lay. 

She had put it into Virginia's hands one day, whence 
it came promptly back to her via Mrs. Trevilian, who told 
her, with the gentle dignity that never left room for ar- 
gument, that she would rather Virginia would get her 
ideas of slavery from real life than from fiction. She 
had offered to lend it to Miss Nannie, who had said with 
scorn : 

''No; I won't read it! It's nothing but a pack of 
lies 1 " 

''How can you tell if you haven't read it?" Miss 
Abby asked, with some show of logic. 

" I know from the people that like it 1 " said Miss 
Nannie. 

It was this attitude of Southern people toward " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin " that had determined Miss Abby upon her 
course of action to-night. Such a book as this ought to 
be brought before them ! She felt that she could do no 
better missionary work than to become the humble instru- 
ment in the hands of Providence to do it. Of course it 
would be better if they would read the whole book ; but 
if they would n't, even fragments properly presented 


134 


ORDER NO. 11 


would be better than nothing. Probably they would be- 
come so interested that they would seek to pursue the 
subject afterward. Miss Abby, it will be observed, while 
a thoroughly good woman, was lacking in that quality of 
the imagination which enables one to enter into the life 
and feelings of others. If she had possessed it, even in 
small measure, she would hardly have entered upon so 
perilous an undertaking as this. 

To the proper presentation she had given her full 
strength, writing out a clear-cut synopsis of the story 
from one selection to the next, which Lois memorized 
and gave as prelude and interlude. That synopsis, though 
brief, missed none of Miss Abby’s points. 

The first selection was Eliza’s escape with her child. 
There was a skilful abbreviation that told the gist of the 
story — the sale, the flight, the pursuit, the escape. Lois 
was a natural elocutionist, and she had been trained for 
this hour. Moreover, she was new to the platform, and 
supposed that the intense interest on the faces before her 
was due to her rendition of the piece. Stimulated by this, 
she threw her whole soul into it. She was finishing it now. 

Right on behind they came,” she declaimed, her 
color rising with the excitement of the theme and the 
breathless attention of the audience; “and nerved with 
strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with 
one wild and flying leap she vaulted sheer over the turbid 
current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was 
a desperate leap,— impossible to anything but madness 
and despair. 

“ The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted 
pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she 
stayed not there a moment. With wild cries and desper- 
ate energy she leaped to another and still another 
cake : — stumbling — leaping — slipping— springing upward 
again ! ” 


SELECT READINGS 


135 


What in de name er God is she talkin’ about?” 
whispered Mammy to Liz up in the gallery. An’ what ’s 
de matter wid de white folks ? ” 

Her shoes were gone,” the young elocutionist con- 
cluded with dramatic intensity ; ‘‘ her stockings cut from 
her feet, while the blood marked every step ; but she saw 
nothing, felt nothing, till, dimly as in a dream, she saw the 
Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.” 

She stopped and made a slight bow, a smile of pleased 
anticipation on her lips. Not a sound broke the stillness. 
There had been generous applause before for every num- 
ber. Now there was silence. 

With a perplexed look at her audience and a half- 
appealing one toward Miss Abby, Lois proceeded with 
the story — Uncle Tom’s journey down the river, the 
meeting with St. Clair and little Eva, and the coming of 
Miss Ophelia. 

The next reading was the kitchen scene between that 
lady and Dinah, — one of the best in the book, for this is 
true to life. A deadly suspicion was fastening upon Lois 
that something was wrong. She was glad that this was a 
humorous selection. But it didn’t seem humorous to 
Grand Prairie! They had seen such kitchens too often 
to perceive anything funny in them or a portrayal of 
them. And when the choice of this humorous sketch was 
made by one who had not spared criticism of such kitch- 
ens, it became doubly offensive. 

The next extract (for Miss Abby had been remark- 
ably conservative— she was saving her strength for the 
finale) was the death of little Eva, which has brought 
tears to the eyes of countless thousands, even when di- 
vorced from the extraneous excitement of two Markses, 
a double Topsy, and bloodhounds galore;— but by this 
time the audience was so hot that they did not care whe- 
ther Eva lived or died. 


ORDER NO. 11 


ji 36 

Lois threw a despairing glance toward the pew where 
Beverljit flushed and uneasy, sat. He could not resist 
the appeal, and a solitary hand-clap smote the stillness. 
It was not followed. The reader was “ damned with 
faint praise,^' and in a voice that quavered slightly she an- 
nounced her last selection — The Death of Uncle Tom.’^ 

‘‘ Oh, heavens ! ” groaned Dr. Lay. “ Now we shall 
have Cass and Legree and all that ! ’’ 

But they were spared Legree. Before she had gone 
further. Colonel Trevilian rose with courtly dignity, and, 
after a kindly tribute to the speaker’s powers that brought 
a ghost of a smile to Lois’s quivering lips, remarked that, 
the hour being late, and most of them having some dis- 
tance to go, he would suggest that they postpone the 
death and burial of their lamented friend until a more 
convenient season. Whereupon, Mr. Singleton, taking 
the cue, rose immediately and announced that the pro- 
gram was ended. 

The buzz began as they went out. Mr. Swamscott, who 
was also from Virginia, remarked dryly to Colonel Tre- 
vilian : 

Well, Colonel, I reckon she is a little too smart for 
us!” 

Inside, Lois Chandler was sobbing in Miss Nannie Tre- 
vilian’s lap. And Miss Nannie cuddled her, indignant as 
she was. 

It was n’t the child’s fault 1 


CHAPTER XV 


WHEN HEARTS ARE YOUNG 


HE Select Readings ” proved a boomerang. Miss 



1 Abby was hardest hit of all,— for it settled irrevo- 
cably the question of next year. Grand Prairie did not 
propose to pay for this kind of thing! 

Even Miss Abby saw that after her conversation with 
Colonel Trevilian. 

He took her in his carriage to Kansas City, where she 
was met by her brother. Dr. Cheever had gathered 
enough from her letter to fill him with dismay. 

“ Such ill-judged zeal 1 he sighed to himself. '' Why 
will they do it 1 ’’ 

Dr. Cheever’s principles were identical with Miss Ab- 
by ’s, but they were tempered by judgment and tact. 

“ I regret this exceedingly. Colonel,'’ he said as the 
two sat together in the parlor of the old Gillis House. 

If I had only known she contemplated such a thing, I 
think I could have forestalled it. But I knew nothing of 
it whatever. I can’t wonder at all that your people should 
have felt just as they did. . . . But I trust, sir, that it will 
make no difference in my own relations with yourself 
and your family,— which, I assure you, have been among 
the most pleasant of my life.” 

He was so earnest in saying it,” Colonel Trevilian said 
in reporting the interview, '' that I could not doubt the 
man’s sincerity. I believe he is genuinely attached to us.” 

They were all out on the porch, and Gordon was watch- 
ing Virginia as she listened to her father. He would have 


138 ORDER NO. 11 

given a good cfeal just then to have had his finger on her 
pulse. 

I think I ’ll write to him and give him a special in- 
vitation to come and see us this summer,” said Mrs. Tre- 
vilian; “just to show him that we don’t bear this up 
against him.” 

“ Do, mother ! ” cried Virginia. And Gordon’s spirits 
fell. He hardly believed she cared for this New Eng- 
lander, but true love is ever self-depreciative and fearful 
of the possible. 

Miss Abby was not the only one hurt in the recoil of 
her weapon. Public censure fell heavily on Lois Chandler. 
The affair was much talked of in the neighborhood, and 
in a way that brought the girl into undesirable and most 
unjust prominence. It was such a bold thing for a girl 
to do, they said ! Anything might be expected from one 
who had no more sense of propriety than that ! But then, 
what could you expect from a girl raised as Lois Chand- 
ler had been, etc., etc. 

Its effects were farther-reaching than anybody would 
have dreamed possible. It is a great pity for a young 
girl— particularly one as pretty as Lois Chandler— to be 
held up before a community as bold. The Trevilians, 
who knew how innocently she had been led into it, had 
constantly to take up the cudgels in her defense. Bev- 
erly raged inwardly at the position in which she was 
placed, but said nothing. He knew he would say too 
much if he said anything. 

But Gordon Lay, with his strict love of justice, was 
outspoken in her behalf, particularly to Mollie Driscoll, 
saying more than he had meant to say about her sweet- 
ness of disposition, her simple-heartedness and other 
charms — Mollie always provoked one to take the other 
side rather violently. And Mollie, having the retentive 
memory that sometimes goes with a small soul and a 


WHEN HEARTS ARE YOUNG 139 


limited discernment of motives, did not forget his 
words. 

If Beverly did not say much, it was not for want of 
feeling. It had been in his heart, when he came back this 
summer, to try to introduce Lois into the merrymakings 
that he knew they would have. As he had thought over 
it in Virginia, it seemed an easy thing to do. If they 
knew her as he did, they would all see how different she 
was from her father and her surroundings. And when 
the curtain had risen that night on Lois as the Lady 
Rowena, looking so stately and high-born in her blue- 
satin gown, and accepting so graciously the casket from 
Virginia’s hand as though it were her right, his heart 
throbbed with exultant pride and hope. They would all 
see now that she would grace any assemblage— any home, 
he thought, with a quickening of the pulse. 

This would make it easier, for they could not fail to 
see. If he could only once get Lois in, he felt no fear 
that she would not be able to hold her place. He would 
get the boys to help him — Gordon would, he knew; 
and he and Gordon could pretty nearly make things 
go their way on Grand Prairie,— and he recalled with a 
smile the time they had set out to make Rene Taggart a 

belle,” and succeeded. Of course they did that in fun ; 
but there was no reason why it could not be done in ear- 
nest. When he thought of the girls he was less confident. 
Girls were queer. One never knew what stand they would 
take. The only thing you could count on was that they 
would hold it when it was taken. Well, he would try to 
bring Virginia over to his side. If Virginia and Sallie 
would only take her up, it would be all right. But this 
was before the “ Select Readings.” Now, he thought 
gloomily, that was all over! 

They had a gay time that summer on Grand Prairie, 
and the heart of it was at Keswick, for Lide Merriweather 


140 


ORDER NO. 11 


was visiting Virginia from Lafayette County, and Tom 
Caruthers had come on from Virginia to spend the sum- 
mer with his Missouri kin/’ Then Matt Delano and a 
friend came out from Independence to spend a month, and 
they had a house-party most of the time. Ca’line was 
busy enough now to have satisfied even Miss Abby, and 
there seemed little probability that any of Mrs. Trevilian’s 
five hundred chickens would reach the winter market. 

Sallie and Virginia and Mollie Driscoll Vv^ere through 
school now, and the emancipation was thorough. Girls 
did not take themselves very seriously in the fifties — that 
is to say, in Missouri. Perhaps they did in New Eng- 
land even then. In the South, a girl’s young-ladyhood 
was her time of florescence. Nobody expected fruit then. 
But what a beautiful flowering it was ! 

Sometimes Gordon Lay wished that Virginia did not 
have so many summer friends, and thought with regret 
of the days when they had roamed along the creek banks 
and gathered pawpaws. He felt this specially after Tom 
Caruthers came. Tom was Virginia’s cousin, of course, 
and it was natural enough that he should be fond 
of her. It was not strange that anybody should, for that 
matter; but the depressing part of it was that Virginia 
also seemed fond of Tom. And what any girl could see 
in Tom Caruthers! 

Gordon was riding home from Colonel Trevilian’s 
alone. Sallie was going to stay all night with the girls, 
and he was glad of it! he said to himself savagely. Sal- 
lie’s chatter was enough to tire a man out! He gave 
Damon a sudden touch of the whip, which was meant fig- 
uratively for garrulous females, but was taken as a per- 
sonal affront by Damon, who was a strictly silent male and 
resented this misapplication of rewards and punishments. 

Now the real cause of Gordon’s discontent was not 
Sallie at all, but Virginia. 


WHEN HEARTS ARE YOUNG 141 


She has the most confoundedly cool way of disposing 
of everybody ! he ejaculated. '' I had made up my mind 
that I was going with her to that barbecue and let Tom 
Caruthers go to thunder, when what does she do but 
whip in ahead and say : ^ Gordon, Lide does n^t like to ride 
horseback. Suppose you and brother take the two girls 
— Sallie and Lide— in our carriage. Tom and I will ride.’ 
That ’s the way it always goes this summer. ‘ Tom and 
I ’ always ride ! I ’ll be glad when it ’s time to go back to 
Transylvania! There’s no use hanging around here.” 

At this very moment Sallie was saying to Virginia as 
she took down her hair and combed out the abundant 
auburn tresses : 

Virge, I thought I ’d die when you headed Gordon 
off! You knew he intended to go with you. I know that 
young man is just raging.” 

‘‘ ‘ Let the heathen rage,’ ” quoted Virginia. I reckon 
I don’t belong to Mr. Gordon Lay.” 

'' He ’d like for you to,” said Sallie. Then she added 
doubtfully— at heart she was very loyal to her cousin: 
'' Virge, do you really care anything for Tom Ca- 
ruthers ? ” 

Yes ! ” Virginia blew out the candle and jumped into 
bed. “ I ’m dead in love with him. He ’s so much more 
polished than the Missouri boys. Tell Gordon I said so.” 

He would rage then, sure enough ! ” 

Tell him, Sallie, and see. We ’ll watch him at the 
Darbecue.” 

And they whispered and giggled and plotted wickedly 
until Colonel Trevilian knocked on the floor of the room 
below. They knew that meant stop. 

This was in the summer of i860. The Independence 
girls went home after a while, but Lide had concluded to 
stay another month. Sallie and Gordon being but a mile 
away, a sextet was always available, and they certainly 


142 


ORDER NO. 11 


did have good times in spite of gathering war clouds and 
the muttering of thunder. Virginia and Sallie and Lide 
had hardly caught the rumble of the storm yet, but the 
boys had. They were men now, and when they were not 
off with the girls they were on the porch listening to Colo- 
nel Trevilian and Dr. Lay. 

The two old friends were much together that summer. 
It was a time when man sought counsel of man. The 
very atmosphere was charged with foreboding, and it 
made one restless to be alone. Almost every afternoon 
Dr. Lay could be seen ambling up the road from the Tre- 
vilian big gate.’’ Then the Colonel would call for a 
mint- julep, and over the cracked ice and the savory in- 
fusion they would discuss the situation. Men were doing 
it all over the land that year, and nowhere with more vital 
interest than in Missouri. 

Mrs. Trevilian and Miss Nannie would bring out their 
work sometimes, and listen, not saying much, but promptly 
alining themselves where their sympathies naturally led 
them. Sometimes Mrs. Trevilian would look at her hus- 
band with a quick, warning glance, but the doctor never 
took offense. 

‘‘ I tell you, sir,” cried Colonel Trevilian one day, 
bringing his fist down on the broad arm of his porch 
chair, ‘‘ if Lincoln is elected it will split this nation in 
two ! The South will never submit to such an indignity ! ” 
The South may not be able to help herself,” replied 
the doctor, quietly. You don’t expect the North to sit 
by and see the Union disrupted and say nothing, do you ? ” 
There are not men and money enough in this na- 
tion, sir, to subjugate the South!” 

It will be a sorry day for her when the issue is forced. 
The South can’t compete with the North.” 

‘ Thrice armed he is that hath his quarrel just/ ” hi5 
host returned. 


WHEN HEARTS ARE YOUNG 143 


“ But look here, Colonel—’’ And then the straw would 
all be threshed over again, and Mrs. Trevilian would go 
into the parlor where the young people were and try to 
throw off the depression brought on by such talk, 

“ Maybe it won’t come, after all,” she would think, 
looking at the three stalwart young men so full of hope 
and the joy of life. But if it should come — would mo- 
thers hold them ? . . . Ah ! what targets they would make 
for rifle-balls 1 

Then there would be a burst of laughter or the merry 
chatter of girls’ voices, with an occasional note of bass, 
and she would put it all from her and enter into the spirit 
of the present, saying to herself : '' Oh, no, it won’t come ! 
I ’m very foolish ! ” 

Such rollicking times as they had ! There were picnics 
over on the Snai, and fishing-parties on Little Blue,— and 
what did it matter that these streams were far away? 
The ride was the best part of the picnic, anyway, es- 
pecially the one home in the gloaming, when the sun had 
just gone down and the heavens were filled with the glory 
of his passing, and they rode, with bated breath and 
laughter hushed, through 

The light that never was, on sea or land.” 

Then there were riding-parties when the whole neigh- 
borhood of young people would congregate, a score or 
more at some appointed place, and, forming a procession, 
would sweep over the prairies at a gallop, with jest and 
laughter and ringing shout,— the very prairies over 
which, in two years, “ night-birds ” would be scurrying 
and hostile bands hunting each other to the death. Aye ! 
when even among this care-free crowd would be himter 
and hunted! May God be thanked for an open present 
and a hidden future! 


144 


ORDER NO. 11 


They did not race often, but sometimes they did even 
this, for in the veins of many on that prairie ran the 
Kentucky blood. It is a thousand wonders there were not 
more accidents; for the girls wore riding-habits with 
skirts down to their horses’ heels,— the longer the better, 
—and would have been as helpless in an accident as a 
babe in swaddling-clothes. 

It was on one of these occasions, when the blood of 
the old fox-hunting squires got the better of their dis- 
cretion, that Gordon saved Virginia from a frightful 
death. Virginia never forgot that moment in which she 
lay in his arms — more, perhaps, thoughtless girl ! for 
what it revealed to her than what it saved her from. 

This was the way it happened : 

She and Tom Caruthers, Gordon, and a girl from Lex- 
ington who was visiting Mollie Driscoll, had started ahead 
of the others for a race, Virginia, as usual, offering the 
dare and being in the lead. The four swept past the other 
couples, and were going at what seemed to the Lexington 
girl frightful speed, when Gordon saw a broken girth 
swing out from the horse in front of him. That horse 
was Rob Roy. 

There was no time for warning— no time for anything. 
He gave Damon a stinging blow that put him alongside 
of Virginia’s horse. The girl swayed with a white, 
terror-stricken face. She realized in one awful moment 
what had happened, and what it would mean with all that 
mad troop behind. 

At that instant, Gordon dropped his bridle, reached 
over, caught her in his arms, and lifted her to his horse’s 
neck. He was a powerful fellow and quick to think. The 
riderless horse dashed on. Both horses did, in fact, for 
Damon had not recovered from his indignant astonish- 
ment at a blow. But Virginia was safe in Gordon’s 
arms. 


WHEN HEARTS ARE YOUNG 145 


When the others came up, the two were on the ground, 
Gordon silently patting Damon’s neck, and Virginia try- 
ing to think how it happened. 

By Jove! it was the neatest thing I ever saw done! ” 
Tom Caruthers exclaimed with genuine admiration. “ I 
did n’t know a thing had happened till I saw Virginia 
spirited to your horse’s neck. Why, it was like the rape 
of the Sabines.” 

He wrung Gordon’s hand and said warmly, as Vir- 
ginia and the Lexington girl talked in unison, trying to 
tell each other how they felt : 

'' My dear fellow, I can’t begin to express—” 

Don’t try,” interrupted Gordon, rather coldly. Any 
man would have done the same.” 

And it was n’t necessary for them to tell each other 
how they felt. 

With Virginia’s horse still galloping in the distance 
and her saddle in the dust behind them, there was nothing 
for her to do but to get up behind Gordon, who had the 
only horse that would carry double, and be conveyed to 
the nearest house, which, fortunately, was Dr. Lay’s. 
There he could get her a new mount and they could pro- 
ceed with the party or go back home as she wished. 

'' I believe I ’ll go back home,” Virginia said. '' Mag, 
you tell them I ’m all right— but— I want mother.” 

Then Tom took Virginia’s foot and lifted her up behind 
Gordon, and Gordon buttoned his coat, and Damon acted 
like sin,— and Virginia had a hard time to hold on, and 
was nervous, anyway, and Gordon kept saying: 

Hold tight, Virge ! I don’t know what makes him act 
this way.” 

They reached Dr. Lay’s at last, and while Gordon saw 
to the horse and sent a man back for the saddle, Virginia 
told the story to sweet, gentle Mrs. Lay and Sallie’s mo- 
ther, Mrs. Devereau. 

10 


46 


ORDER NO. 11 


It was God's mercy, my child ! " said Mrs. Lay, sol- 
emnly. 

I don't know," Virginia said softly. I think— it was 
Gordon." 

To Sallie next day she said : Suppose it had been Dr. 
Cheever instead of Gordon ! I hardly think God's mercy 
could have saved me then." 

And Sallie, who was unusually sober for her, replied: 
‘‘ Maybe it was God's mercy that put Gordon there." 

The two rode home to Keswick a little later, when the 
stars were coming out, one by one, and the great golden 
disk of the moon was just appearing above the horizon. 
It was rather a silent ride. Both hearts were full. They 
could not talk just now of commonplace things, iior laugh 
and jest. They had not quite emerged from that shadow 
of averted death. 

And Gordon could feel her in his arms yet ! 



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CHAPTER XVI 


IN WHICH BEVERLY SUPPOSES A CASE 
HE next day after this exploit and its happy termi- 



1 nation, Miss Nannie sat out on the long piazza on 
the east side of the ell. A clematis had been trained from 
post to post, and the great purple clusters hung down in 
drooping profusion. Had they been a little deeper in 
color, a little more tinged with the blood of the vine, they 
might have passed as the grapes of Eshcol,— so perfect 
were they in shape. 

The young folks were down at the grape-vine tree, — 
all except Beverly, who had been off riding somewhere 
and had just thrown himself, whip in hand, on the broad 
step at Miss Nannie’s feet. She was reading The New 
York Observer,” but she put it aside to talk to him, and 
took up the roll of embroidery on her lap. 

Aunt Nan,” he said abruptly, after they had talked 
of the riding-party of the night before and Virginia’s es- 
cape, and of the barbecue that was to be. ‘‘ Why is it that 
Lois Chandler is never invited to any of these things?” 

She does n’t belong to your crowd,” said Miss Nan- 
nie, under the impression, apparently, that that answered 
the question in full. 

''But why does n’t she belong to our crowd ? That 
is the very thing I am asking. We ’ve always known her. 
The girls went to school with her. She ’s a neighbor. 
She belongs to our church—” 

" Only because there is no Congregational church for 


148 ORDER NO. 11 

them to go to. They were Congregationalists before they 
came here.’’ 

'' Why, Aunt Nan, Lois Chandler was horn here. She 
is a Missourian, just as Virginia is.” 

'' Well,— she ’s a Yankee, just the same.” 

“ I thought Dr. Cheever had cured you of your preju- 
dice against Yankees.” 

“ There are Yankees and Yankees, Beverly. Dr. 
Cheever is a cultivated, educated gentleman. But the 
Chandlers—” 

“ Mr. Chandler is a graduate of Yale College.” 

'' Old man Chandler ! ” 

'^Yes’m. He told me so himself.” 

'' Why, Beverly, he was down South as an overseer ! ” 

'' I know it. He told me that, too.” 

Miss Nannie looked at him with embarrassing direct- 
ness. '' It seems to me, he ’s been telling you a good many 
things. When did you and old man Chandler get so 
thick?” 

He went down South when he was a young man,” he 
said, ignoring her bantering remark, with the idea of 
being a sort of missionary among the negroes, and he 
started in as an overseer.” 

‘'Good judgment!” she coijnmented. 

“ Well, he did n’t know how it was going to be, — and 
then he gave that up and came up here and went to 
farming.” 

“ He does n’t seem to have made much use of his edu- 
cation.” 

“ Perhaps not. But, Aunt Nan, I ’m not talking about 
Mr. Chandler ”— it struck Miss Nannie that there was 
something strange in his not saying “ old man Chandler,” 
as usual, but she let it pass—" I ’m talking about Lois. 
She is a nice, refined girl, and I can’t see why she 
is n’t taken in with the rest of the girls. I think it is a 


BEVERLY SUPPOSES A CASE 149 


shame ! He was so impotent that he felt hot and 
indignant. 

Miss Nannie stitched on imperturbably. 

'' Beverly, you can’t force these matters. They regu- 
late themselves. People find their own level in any com- 
munity, and the level of an overseer’s child — even an 
ex-overseer’s — is a different one from that of your father’s 
daughter, naturally. Besides,” she continued after a 
moment’s thought, it would be no kindness to Lois 
Chandler to bring her into associations that could ulti- 
mately bring her only sorrow and disappointment.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” He paused in his work of 
snipping off the heads of the pretty-by-nights with his 
whip, and looked up at her with genuine curiosity. 

I mean,” she said, if I must be so plain, that young 
people who would never under any circumstances think 
of marriage had better not be associated very closely. 
You never know where these things are going to end.” 

'' And why—” began Beverly, with heat, and then he 
stopped— prudence coming to the rescue. “ Aunt Nan, 
let ’s suppose a case— just for the sake of argument.” 

Very well. Present your case.” 

Suppose Gordon Lay, we will say, well born, well 
bred, and well educated as he is, should fall in love with 
Lois Chandler and want to marry her. Now,— 
should n’t he do it? ... It is his life! . . . Why 
should n’t he live it as he wants to ? and why should n’t 
he associate with it any other life that he wants to ? ” 

He spoke so impetuously, so as if it were a real cause 
he was advocating, that Miss Nannie laid down her work 
to answer. 

'' For one thing, because he owes something to his 
family. If he is well born and well bred and well edu- 
cated, as you say, they, it is to be supposed, have made 
him so; and he owes it to them to give them a daughter 


ORDER NO. 11 


150 

of whom they need never be ashamed. I don’t know how 
Dr. Lay would feel,” she broke off to say ; '' but I can tell 
you such a marriage would be a bitter pill to your father ! 
You could n’t strike him in a more vital spot than in his 
family pride ! ” 

He stooped over and pulled up a spear of grass, wait- 
ing for her to go on, which she did. 

‘‘ And then a man owes it to his children to give them 
a mother that shall be able to make them what his mother 
has made him. It must be a source of great unhappiness 
to a man to be continually contrasting his wife with his 
mother, to the wife’s disparagement. But he must do it 
if he marries beneath him.” 

'' But if he loves her—” 

“ Oh, love is n’t everything, Beverly. Certainly puppy 
love is n’t ! Though I should hardly think that Gordon 
Lay would ever be carried away with—” 

I did n’t say he was. I only said suppose he should 
v/ant to marry her.” 

'' There is another reason. Such a marriage would 
never bring happiness to him, — leaving his family out of 
the matter entirely. Her want of cultivation would be 
continually thrusting itself upon him. He would come 
to be ashamed of her mistakes and her social shortcom- 
ings. It would be a very strong woman that could hold 
a man under those circumstances. Lois Chandler never 
could! It would be a bitter day for Gordon when he 
woke up.” 

But if he loved her,” he protested, “ he would have 
patience to teach her and bring her up to his social level.” 

It is safer to take one that is already taught,” re- 
marked Miss Nannie, astutely. The teaching is apt to 
be a trying process to both if it comes after marriage. 
Such a person seldom realizes her own deficiencies, and 
her husband’s well-meant instruction she might mistake 


BEVERLY SUPPOSES A CASE 151 


for nagging. There would be a great chance for unhap- 
piness there.” 

Oh, these little social conventionalities ! ” began 
Beverly, impatiently. What do they amount to, any- 
way ? ” 

“ Lm not talking about little social conventionalities. 
I feel about many of those things just as you do. Some 
people seem to feel that the sum total of culture is to eat 
with your fork and sip soup from the side of a spoon in- 
stead of the end ! I ’ll grant that such things can be ac- 
quired by anybody with very little effort. But good 
breeding goes deeper than that! And one of its best 
fruits — one that can’t be taken on with any veneer — 
—is a nice sense of the proprieties of life. It teaches a 
girl what to say and how to say it ; what to do and when 
to do it (and, above all, when not to do it) ; it teaches her 
what to think, what to feel. After generations of this 
kind of thing, right thinking, right feeling, and right act- 
ing become instinctive,— and it is really never very good 
breeding until it is instinctive.” 

She paused a moment and then went on. 

Now take this case of Lois and her readings, that 
there has been so much said about since the exhibition, 
I don’t think, myself, that Lois was a particle to blame 
in that matter. She did what Miss Abby told her to do, 
without a thought that she was doing anything out of 
the way.” 

Of course she did 1 ” he replied eagerly. It was all 
Miss Abby’s fault. It is ridiculous the way people blame 
Lois for that 1 ” 

“Yes, it is— I agree with you about that;— but, Bev- 
erly, a really well-bred girl would have seen the impro- 
priety of it, even if Miss Abby did n’t. And you have 
never heard me say that I considered Miss Abby a model. 
She was strong in mathematics, but she was weak in social 


ORDER NO. 11 


15- 


perception, or she would never have tried to give us that 
dose of ‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ ” 

Beverly flicked the pretty-by-nights relentlessly. He 
thought he could see the drift of this. 

‘‘ Well,— the point I want to make is this: Virginia — 
or Sallie, even, with all her love of fun— would never 
have done what Lois did. They would have seen at once 
that it was not the thing to do. And there is where Lois 
will always be at a disadvantage, and where she would 
many times be a source of mortification to a man like 
Gordon Lay.” 

They sat in silence after this, and then Miss Nannie, 
thinking that there had been enough of this serious talk, 
asked : ‘‘ Who are you going to take to the barbecue ? ” 
And it must be recorded that, after all her strictures 
upon Miss Abby, she said who where that lady would 
have said whom. 

Oh, — Sallie, I suppose,” returned Beverly, gloomily. 
As he rose to go. Miss Nannie stopped him. She had 
been going over in her mind the case he had supposed. 
'' Beverly, you certainly don’t mean that Gordon Lay 
is likely to become interested in Lois Chandler ? ” 

She lopked so distressed, and the supposition was so 
absurd, that the temptation to carry it on appealed irre- 
sistibly to his sense of humor. 

I know he likes her,” he replied, with a non-commit- 
tal air of gravity that implied ability to tell more if he 
thought it wise to tell ; '' and, as you say, one never can 
tell where these things will end.” 

He likes her! It may mean much or little, and Miss 
Nannie took it to mean much. She pondered over it 
when her nephew was sauntering toward the grape-vine 
tree. Gordon certainly had been very outspoken in his 
defense of Lois whenever the affair of the '' Select Read- 
ings ” was brought up, but— 


BEVERLY SUPPOSES A CASE 153 

My ! what a shock that would be to his family ! ” 
Then she shook her head slowly and knit her brows. '' I 
always thought . . . that some day . . . Gordon and 
Virginia would— the perplexity in her face turned to 
cunning determination — I believe — I will give Virginia 
a hint of this— just a hint. ... I would hate to see her 
give her affections— where— 0 A, pshaw! I don’t believe 
it!” 

But she was believing a good deal more of it than Bev- 
erly ever intended she should, though she thought better 
of speaking to her niece about it. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE BARBECUE 


HE barbecue was to be at Lone Jack, a modest little 



1 hamlet of one street, taking its name from a soli- 
tary oak (a black-jack) which stood near the roadside. 
Under its spreading branches w^ere dug, two years from 
that August day, two trenches side by side. In one was 
laid the Federal, in the other the Confederate dead- 
some of the very men who strolled over the grounds to- 
day, chatting and joking with the friends and neighbors 
and brothers they fought to the death that day. It was a 
bloody fight. The old black-jack did its best, but it could 
not give a shadow from the heat for all who lay beneath 
it when the sun went down. 

But the barbecue was on the other side, over by the 
grove, and nobody foresaw what the old tree was to wit- 
ness in two short years. 

Perhaps it was the social instinct fostered by the bar- 
becue that gave direction to the commemoration of that 
sanguinary day, for certain it is that for forty years the 
Lone Jack picnic on the sixteenth of August, the day of 
the battle, has been a county institution. 

To it come wagon-loads of farmers with their families 
and their baskets, jolly parties of merrymakers from the 
neighboring towns, politicians with axes that can be 
sharpened here in a lump, and not least — oh, no, not least 
—the dwellers on Snai. 

It was precisely this concourse that made up the bar- 


THE BARBECUE 


155 


becue of i860. Two congressional candidates were 
stumping the district, and a gathering like this was too 
good an opportunity to miss. Everybody wanted to have 
his candidate's position clearly defined in '60. No man 
would be away who could get there. 

The Keswick crowd arrived just before noon— they 
had a long way to go and had driven at a leisurely gait. 
As had been planned, Beverly and Sallie, Gordon and 
Lide Merriweather rode in the carriage, with Uncle Reu- 
ben in the driver's seat and a generous hamper of pro- 
visions at his feet. 

“ You-all won't like barbecue fare," Mrs. Trevilian 
had said. Aunt Viny will fix you up something." 

At the last moment it was decided that it was too warm 
for horseback-riding, and Virginia and Tom followed in 
the buggy at a safe distance to avoid the dust. One mem- 
ber of the carriage-load looked back at every turn to see 
if they were in sight. What do you keep looking out 
for ? " asked Lide. 

I feel a little afraid of this tire," said Gordon, in some 
confusion. He spoke in a low tone so that Uncle Reuben 
should not hear him. 

Dat tire 's all right, Marse Gordon, sir. Hit 's de 
buggy whar de danger is." 

There was a peal of laughter at Gordon's expense, and 
Uncle Reuben drove a full mile trying to see where the 
laugh came in. The buggy did have a loose tire, and the 
carriage did n't ! But ‘‘ white folks was awful fond of 
haw-hawin' " ! 

They all reached the place about the same time, and the 
three birds of brilliant hue shook out their ruffled plumage 
and chattered like magpies. A little later Colonel Tre- 
vilian rode up on Milo, his big iron-gray. 

They would have time, they decided, to stroll around 
a little and see the lay of the land while Uncle Reuben 


ORDER NO. 11 


156 

was attending to the horses and getting things ready for 
dinner. 

Near the center of the grounds was the arbor, fashioned 
securely from stout hickory saplings, some of them of 
Nature's own planting, and the rest sunk deep in the black 
earth. To these supports were fastened transverse poles 
with smaller ones crossing them,— all held in place by 
hickory withes. Over the whole were laid leafy boughs, 
fresh-gathered, and the result was a cool and shady dan- 
cing-pavilion not to be scorned. Such a rustic pavilion is 
sometimes called in the West a bowery," which gives it 
rather a rakish sound (particularly if the capital B is im- 
agined) ; but, spelled as its derivation would suggest, a 
‘‘ boughery dance " is quite a harmless affair. 

The arbor was large enough for nine sets at a time, 
and was always taxed to the utmost when the Lone Jack 
blood was up. The floor was leveled smooth as a tennis- 
court and covered with a thick carpet of sawdust. The 
men who had the work in charge protested against the 
waste of time and material in making it so thick, but old 
Bob Balentine knew what he was about. He had super- 
intended the making of arbors a good many years for 
both dances and camp-meetings. 

Jes' you wait tell Hank Menafee and Bud Taggart 
git a-goin'," he said. “ You 'll see ! That Snai gang 
kicks up a heap er dust. Some of 'em don't know how to 
swing corners 'thout whirlin' the girls around two or three 
times and makin' their skirts stand out like balloons. 
No, sir ; you can't git too much sawdust for the Snai gang 
— not for a dance ! " 

At one end of the arbor was a raised platform for 
Uncle Putney, the black fiddler, who from this elevation 
could make his stentorian voice heard to the remotest 
corner of the arbor. He was in his glory when the nine 
sets were all going and Bud Taggart was getting in his 


THE BARBECUE 


157 


best licks. Then he would literally rise to the occasion, 
standing up where he could survey the field, and issuing 
trumpet-calls to the whirling, stamping, rollicking crowd. 

Around the arbor were placed rude benches, patronized 
by women past their dancing prime, who held their babies 
and looked enviously on, saying: 

Them figgers ain’t near as pretty as the ones they had 
in our time. My ! do you remember how Jim Force used 
to dance 'Tucker’? Bud Taggart ain’t a patchin’ to 
Jim! Why, Jim would kick sawdust till you wouldn’t 
know but ’t was a horse pawin’.” 

These benches were used occasionally too by tired 
belles who protested that they could not wag a foot till 
they had rested ; but they and the envious ex-belles held 
possession. There was no provision at Lone Jack for 
chaperons— nor any need of it. The theory of the com- 
munity was that " every dog should have his day,” and 
the young people, who had every confidence and merited 
it, had all the liberty they wanted unhampered by el- 
derly females. 

It being early, the dancing was going on in a perfunc- 
tory sort of way which gave no hint of the height to 
which it would rise by three o’clock, and the Keswick 
party directed their steps to the banqueting-place, Colonel 
Trevilian acting as guide. 

This was at the right of the arbor and a little way back. 
Long, narrow tables, formed of two boards supported by 
cross-pieces set in the ground, were planted under the 
shade of the hickories and oaks. 

On either side were board benches similarly planted, 
over which the banqueters, male and female, deftly 
stepped to seat themselves. 

" Let ’s go where they are barbecuing,” said Beverly. 
" Lide says she has never seen it done.” 

Back at some distance the cooks were busy. Luckily 


ORDER NO. 11 


158 

they had nothing to do but to barbecue the meat, for that 
required not a little attention. Old man Collins was the 
prize barbecuer for the neighborhood, and he had plenty 
of assistants. 

They had dug deep pits the day before and started fierce 
fires in them, feeding these with logs till they had a pit 
of solid coals. Over each of these inexhaustible broilers 
they had spitted the half of a beef,— Colonel Carter’s best, 
they said, and Colonel Carter’s poorest was good. The 
pole on which the beef was hung was suspended across 
two forked sticks at the ends of the pit, and the great 
roast was turned assiduously by attendants, who basted it 
with vinegar, pepper, and salt. 

It was a tedious process, but the old-timers say there 
was never meat like it. It seems now that it must have 
taken a youthful appetite, plenty of outdoor air, a long 
ride, and a strong infusion of patriotism to make one see 
it so. 

Gordon,” whispered Virginia, as the others watched 
the cooks, who is that man over near the other pit ? I 
don’t believe he belongs around here.” 

It was a young man of twenty-three or -four, appar- 
ently, well dressed and gentlemanly in appearance. He 
was looking carelessly at the crowd as it surged now to- 
ward the tables. 

'' I never saw him before. Rather nice-looking, is n’t 
he?” 

Ye-s.” 

Just then the man turned and looked straight at Vir- 
ginia,— an accidental glance, of course, but somehow it 
sent a thrill through her. And yet, she had never seen 
the man before,— why should his chance look affect her 
like this? She said nothing to Gordon about the feeling. 

The Trevilian party ate their fried chicken, grated 
ham, and beaten biscuits (to say nothing of other tooth- 


THE BARBECUE 


159 


some dainties) from a table-cloth on the grass, with Uncle 
Reuben standing behind his Miss Virginia and pouring 
iced cherry-bounce as it was needed. Colonel Trevilian 
was too busy talking politics to waste the hour on a set 
of giddy young people, so they had things all their own 
way. 

There was a lull in the arbor during the dinner-hour, 
but Uncle Putney’s voice was soon heard again : 

First four forward ! Ladies, change ! ” 

His foot was keeping time with his bow, and through 
their conversation was a running fire of calls, ending gen- 
erally with an upward tilt of the voice that nobody but a 
negro fiddler or a camp-meeting musician of the olden 
time can give, and that none can understand save those 
who have heard it. Occasionally he would break into a 
tune when the plot thickened and the sawdust began to 
fly. Then, with arms and feet and head all a-quiver in 
an ecstasy of time, his voice would catch the infection 
and ring out in rhythmic exultation : 

Swing yo’ pardners all aroun’, 

An’ all prom-e-na-ac?^.' ” 

They were in full fling when the Keswick party reached 
the arbor. The seats were creaking and sagging porten- 
tously with their burden of matrons, augmented now 
from the ranks of the elderly, who could not withstand 
the witchery of Uncle Putney’s bow and the sound of 
shuffling feet, though they compromised with their con- 
sciences by keeping only one eye on the dance and decry- 
ing it openly as a device of the devil. 

“ I was at the babtizin’ when Matt Dolaway j’ined the 
church, and jes’ look at her now, kitin’ round thar like 
she wa’n’t a professor ! ” 

Just then there was a tangle in the set, resulting from 


i6o 


ORDER NO. 11 


Matt Dolaway’s inexperience. It stirred the sluggish 
flow of the caviler's Terpsichorean blood. 

Look at that ! ’’ she exclaimed in vexation. They 
ain’t gettin’ that Agger right ! Ef I was n’t so heavy — 
and a church member— I ’d show ’em! I’ve danced 
that Agger many a time till four o’clock in the mornin’. 
It was my isNorite one. But I seen the folly of it,” she 
added, recalled from her reminiscences by a smile on the 
face of her auditor, and feeling that she had made an 
awkward admission. I seen the folly of it 1 ” 

You had the fun of it Arst, though,” said the woman, 
who was patting her foot and longing to be on the floor. 
She was hampered by no scruples. It was the two small 
boys hanging to her skirts, and the absence of partners. 
‘‘ They all see the folly of it when they are your— age.” 
She was going to say ‘‘ size,” but refrained in a spasm 
of generosity. 

The girls and young men from Keswick were stand- 
ing outside the arbor, looking over the heads of the seated 
spectators. 

In the set facing them was a girl, tall and straight, with 
a certain kind of ferocious beauty in her black eyes and 
scornful mouth, and a willowy grace of motion. She 
was watching the party with eyes that never once turned 
toward them. 

'' Why, Gordon,” — Virginia leaned across Lide, who 
stood between them,— “ is n’t that Rene Taggart? ” 

Yes.” 

“ Oh, do you remember that day ? ” 

Yes,” he said quietly. '' Don’t look at her, and don’t 
laugh. She ’s watching us.” 

Just then the girl lifted her head with a deAant ges- 
ture. She fancied they were talking about her. Vir- 
ginia had turned to her cousin, and as he met the girl’s 
eye Gordon raised his hat and bowed. 


THE BARBECUE 


i6i 


The blood surged to her face. She nodded and went 
on with the dance. Nobody knew that her heart was 
thumping so she could hardly hear the calls, least of all 
Hank Menafee, her partner, who at this moment caught 
her around the waist and gave her the triple swing for 
which he was famed, and which nobody enjoyed more 
than Rene, generally. 

To-day, she released herself angrily. 

You need n’t keep it up till I ’m drunk ! ” she said. 

What ’s the matter with you ? ” he asked, eying her 
keenly. 

Rene could hardly have told, herself. 

While this by-play was going on, Gordon’s attention 
was wandering to the crowd surrounding the arbor. He 
was looking for familiar faces and bowing to this one 
and that. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the face of the 
young man that Virginia had called his attention to at 
the barbecue fire. For a minute they rested there. Who 
was he? Gordon wondered. He seemed in the crowd 
and yet not of it, for he was evidently but a looker-on, 
taking no part in the festivities and speaking, so far as 
Gordon could see, to no one. His interest seemed less in 
the dance than in the people circling around the edge of 
the arbor and constantly changing. 

As Gordon stood looking at him, a subtile change came 
over the man’s face. A gleam of something— was it re- 
cognition, or hate, or satisfaction, or a mingling of all 
three? — leaped into his eyes, bent now like a basilisk’s 
upon some person or object on the other side of the big 
arbor. Gordon had once seen a snake charm a bird to its 
destruction. This man’s narrowed eyes and a certain 
swaying motion as he moved past intervening heads 
made him think of it. 

He looked in the direction of that gaze. He could see 
nothing to carry out the similitude that had suggested 
11 


i 62 


ORDER NO. 11 


itself to him. No helpless, innocent bird was striving to 
free itself from that fateful spell. His eyes fell only on 
old Mr. Collins and his daughter, and Jim Baird, Emmons 
Baird’s brother, a country lout who was watching the 
dancers with open mouth and good-humored smile. 

Gordon looked back to the charmer. He would have 
to take his bearings again if he was to find out what 
caused that basilisk gaze. But the man was lost in the 
crowd, and when Gordon turned back to where Jim 
Baird had stood, he, too, was gone. 

“Where is Beverly?” suddenly exclaimed Sallie. 
“ I ’ve lost my beau ! ” She had not discovered it till 
now, so absorbed was she in the scene before her, though 
he had been gone a half-hour or more. 

“ I saw him walking across the grounds with a young 
lady,” remarked Mr. Caruthers ; “ a beauty with blonde 
hair. Who is she. Miss Sallie, do you suppose?” 

“ It sounds like Lois Chandler,” returned Sallie. “ She 
is a beauty, has blonde hair, and Beverly—” 

“ Nonsense, Sallie, how you talk ! ” interrupted Vir- 
ginia, .sharply. “Come on, Tom; let’s look him up. 
Come, Sallie.” 

Two women turned to look after them. They supposed 
the whole party was gone. 

“ That ’s Colonel Trevilian’s girl,” said one,— “ that 
one in the buff chambray. Ain’t she a high-stepper? 
That ’s her cousin from Virginia with her. They say 
she ’s going to marry him. These Virginians are great 
on marrying cousins.” 

Lide looked up at Gordon as the others moved off. He 
was smiling down at her inscrutably. 

“ Do you believe it ? ” she asked. 

He evaded it by a counter-question. “ Do you ? ” 

“ No, I don’t! I hope not, anyway.” 

“ Why?” 


THE BARBECUE 


163 

'' Oh, because—’’ 

'' Because what ? ” 

She looked up at him with a glance which was half 
searching, half coquettish. “ I think she could do better 
nearer home.” 

I don’t know where there would be any one nearer 
to her.” He purposely misunderstood. “ He is her own 
cousin.” 

'' Well,” she fluttered with a little sigh, “ I hope she 
won’t marry him.” She said it mainly because she hoped 
she would. Lide was secretly a little in love with Gordon 
herself. 

The girls were getting their things together for the 
return when a pistol-shot came from the direction of the 
grove back of the grounds. 

What ’s that?” asked Lide. 

'' Somebody shooting at a target, probably,” Beverly 
replied. You ’ll hear it again in a minute.” 

But they did not. 

The girls went on folding shawls, etc., and chatting 
about the day’s pleasures, and explaining some of the 
local points to Tom. But Beverly and Gordon were be- 
coming dimly conscious of some excitement in the air. 
They were starting carelessly toward the grove when 
Colonel Trevilian rode up. 

Is Reuben ready ? ” he said in a low tone to Beverly. 

You ’d better start at once. There ’s been trouble over 
yonder in the grove. Don’t let the girls know anything 
about it, — but — a man was shot just now.” 

Shot ! ” cried Beverly. '' That was the pistol-shot 
we heard, then. Who was it?” 

And Gordon asked in the same breath : Was it acci- 
dental?” 

“ It was Jim Baird. No— I don’t believe it was acci- 
dental.” Colonel Trevilian wiped his forehead with a 


164 


ORDER NO. 11 


shaking hand. He seemed strangely moved. ''He fell 
dead with a bullet-hole in the middle of the forehead, 
God knows where this thing is going to end ! Get otf as 
soon as you can 1 

They did not tell the girls anything about it, and that 
ride home was as gay as if death were not stalking 
amongst them. Colonel Trevilian had stayed behind to 
see what could be done about Jim Baird, — who, after all, 
was his neighbor,— and there was nobody but Uncle Reu- 
ben to hold them in check. They drove home by the light 
of the moon, which flooded the prairie roads long before 
they reached Keswick. The quartette in the carriage 
sang till their throats ached, — ‘‘ Rosalie, the Prairie 
Flower '' and My Old Cabin Home and '' The Pirate’s 
Serenade,” — and nobody sang with truer notes than Gor- 
don, though the singing was a trifle mechanical, and 
there was an undercurrent of wonder about the man that 
stood watching Jim Baird that day. Was he the one that 
fired that shot? And why should he have selected Jim 
Baird, as inoffensive a man as there was on the prairie? 
If it had been Emmons, now,— that might have seemed 
reasonable, for everybody said that Emmons Baird had 
a bad face. It was well for Gordon that they sang instead 
of talked, for it left him freer to think,— and his thoughts 
were not all of Jim Baird and his tragic death. 

Virginia had tried to shift the load when they started 
from Lone Jack. 

Tom,” she said sweetly, — she had reasons of her own 
for wishing to avoid that drive with her cousin (he had 
had a letter from his father, the day before, requiring his 
immediate return, and she knew it), — suppose you take 
Sallie in the buggy and I will go in the carriage. I don’t 
like to leave Lide all day long.” 

'' I should be most happy,” said Mr. Caruthers, with a 


THE BARBECUE 165 

courtly bow to Miss Devereau. He was smothering an 
oath, but he was a gentleman. 

'‘You look itC’ said Sallie, satirically. Then, turn- 
ing her back upon him and shaking her fist surreptitiously 
at Virginia, she replied : 

" I could n’t think of it, Virgie dear. I am to be prima 
donna of the quartet going home, and, you know, you 
and Lide both sing alto. This is one time that you 
couldn’t fill my place. You wretch!” she finished under 
her breath as she passed her. 

So Virginia Trevilian had to take that ride in the 
moonlight with Tom Caruthers, though on his face was 
the look that every woman shrinks from and wards off 
instinctively, sometimes even when at heart she is glad. 

What he said nobody will ever know, — for nobody 
heard but Virginia and the moon ; and Virginia was true, 
and the gentle goddess had been confidante to too many 
lovers in all these ages to begin to betray them now. She 
only looked down upon them and smiled, and went under 
a cloud for a moment while Virginia answered, and came 
out again with a burst of light as if to show the poor 
fellow that it was a bright world— a glorious world— in 
spite of girls. 

But he did n’t see it. They always think that is the 
end! 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 



HE shooting of Jim Baird made a great stir in the 


X neighborhood. Dr. Lay's almost forgotten story 
of the case he had seen at Lawrence was suddenly re- 
membered, and was repeated with great shaking of heads 
and numerous blood-curdling additions. Before the bar- 
becue crowd had dispersed, the story had gained currency, 
and people rode home in excited groups, telling it over 
and prophesying that the scene of the strange assassin's 
operations would be shifted now from Kansas to Mis- 


souri. 


The body was taken home that night to the old Baskin 
place. Dr. Lay going on ahead to break the news to the 
brother, who was not at the barbecue. It is impossible 
to describe the condition into which that news threw Em- i 
mons Baird. Dr. Lay said at Keswick, where he stopped 
on his way home, that he should always think more of j 
the man because of his affection for his brother. | 

Do you think it was affection for his brother or fear 
for himself?" asked Colonel Trevilian, thinking of the 
look he had once seen on Emmons Baird’s face. 

‘'Well, I hadn't thought of that," the doctor said. j 
He thought of it the next day. | 

It had been arranged between himself and Emmons 
Baird that the funeral should take place the following ;; 
afternoon, Dr. Lay offering to secure the services of Mr. 
Singleton, that the dead man might have Christian burial. 


i66 


A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 167 


But when the neighbors got there the next day— and 
many there were that came, the number being constantly 
augmented by new arrivals— they were met with startling 
information. The old house was shut up, and there was 
a new-made grave out in the orchard. Uncle Bob, the 
old negro that Emmons Baird had bought when he first 
came to the neighborhood, told the story to the astounded 
group. 

Yaas, sir ; him an’ me done buried him las’ night. 
You had n’t much more ’n got out er sight, doctor, ’fo’ he 
set me to diggin’ de grave.” 

“ Where is Emmons Baird now ? ” demanded the 
doctor. 

'' De Lord knows, sir ! I don’t. When Cindy went to 
de house dis mawnin’ he was gone. . . . No, sir ; I don’t 
know nothin’ ’t all ’bout it. His bed wa’n’t tumbled or 
nothin’. He didn’ even take his clo’es. He jes’ tuk his 
gun, and dat black mare er hisn an’ lit out.” 

The story was repeated to fresh instalments as they 
came up, and never was there a more surprised funeral 
assemblage, nor one that felt more defrauded. The old 
story of the Kansas assassin was hashed up again as they 
rode off in groups, talking excitedly. Some there were 
who believed that Jim Baird had come to life and been 
spirited off in the night, but Dr. Lay shook his head. 
The man was certainly dead. There was no doubt about 
it whatever. And so they went away. 

Uncle Bob’s story was true. The murdered man was 
in his grave, and Emmons Baird had disappeared as 
completely as though the earth had opened and swal- 
lowed him up. It was a great pity but it had. 

The whole thing created a nine days’ wonder, — twice 
that for the women,— but excitement was rising to such 
a height now over the coming elections that it was soon 
overshadowed for the men. The time seemed likely to 


i68 ORDER NO. 11 

be at hand when the death of one man would be a small 
matter. 

In Missouri, the quadrangular fight of i860 was virtu- 
ally a three-cornered one. And yet the specter of the tall 
man at the fourth corner inspired gravest forebodings. 

'' If Lincoln is elected it will split this nation in two ! ’’ 
Colonel Trevilian had said to Dr. Lay. 

It was heard on all sides during that feverish, hard- 
fought campaign ; it was spoken with every shade of feel- 
ing — angrily, boastingly, defiantly; with resolute hearts 
that heard the trumpet-call in the distance, and were 
ready ; and sorrowfully, pleadingly, by prescient souls that 
saw behind it all a tide of blood and shrank back. 

“ If Lincoln is elected it will split this nation in two ! ’’ 

They did not underestimate the keenness of the wedge ; 
they did not overestimate the blows that would be rained 
upon it; but they had not calculated the strength of re- 
sistance— a factor as potential in war as in physics. 

It was a summer and fall of restless anxiety to all. It 
did not seem possible, from the Jackson County point of 
view, that Lincoln could be elected. But if he should— 
what then? 

The most baseless, exaggerated fears were real in those 
days. Men knew not what was before them, and feared 
the worst,— everything, in fact, except the thing which 
came— a deluge of blood for four long years. Nobody 
expected that. The first enlistments were for three 
months— ample time, it was supposed, for putting down 
the rebellion. They knew as little of the fiber of the 
men they were to subdue as the British knew of the Boers. 

The ignorance on the other side was as marked and 
perhaps more amusing. 

Any Southern man can whip a dozen Yankees ! ’’ It 
was the common belief. They felL no less than the 


A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 169 


North, that they were fighting for God and home and 
native land/' How could the mercenary Dutch, the 
'' Yankee mudsills," stand against the chivalry of the 
South ? 

They would die in the last ditch " ! they said. Vain- 
glorious boast uttered by men that knew not war! It 
was made a scoffing and a byword for four long years. 
Its echo after the stillness of a forty years' peace has in 
it something of humor ; but to an ear attuned to the 
plaintive minor chord as well as the triumphant major, 
there is more of pathos. The world bears witness now 
that when the end came there were not many ditches left 
— nor men to die in them. And the fair Southland was 
filled with widows and widowed maids 1 

Men were scanning the sky everywhere in i860, and 
nowhere more anxiously than in Missouri. The storm 
was gathering, the heavens were dark, prudent men had 
their ears to the ground, and the timid sought cover. 

-It hardly seemed for a while that the boys could go 
back to college— things were so unsettled and money so 
scarce. Virginia and Sallie had been obliged to give up 
all thought of Richmond and Lexington. 

How that battle raged in the early fall 1 How men ar- 
gued and ranted! How the forces gathered themselves 
for the final onslaught! Would it be Breckenridge ? or 
Bell and Everett ? or would it be Douglas, after all ? 

November came. 

It was Lincoln ! 

My dear," said Colonel Trevilian one day, looking up 
from the paper he had been holding before him for an 
hour with his eyes glued to one spot, '' what would you 
think of my hiring out Liz ? " 

It was late in December, and the negroes were hired 
out the first of January. 


170 


ORDER NO. 11 


Mrs. Trevilian laid down her knitting and looked at 
him in amazement. She could hardly believe she had 
heard aright. 

“Hire Liz out? What for?’’ 

There had never been a negro hired out from her family 
since she could remember. 

Colonel Trevilian shifted his position uneasily. 

“ Times are very hard, my dear. I have never known 
money so tight, not even in the hard times of ’57. And 
the worst of it is, that there is no telling where it is going 
to end. People don’t know what is before them, and they 
won’t let their money go. Then, you know, the last two 
years we have had no crops on account of the drought. 
All together—” 

“Well?” 

“ Well, — I ’ve had an opportunity to-day to hire Liz 
out, and I don’t know but I ’d better do it.” 

“ Who wants her?” 

Colonel Trevilian stooped to pick up his paper. He 
answered without looking up. 

“ John Renfrew.” 

''John Renfrew!'' 

“ Yes.” Colonel Trevilian felt her tone to be uncom- 
promising. 

“ Do you think she ought to go ? ” The question was 
incisive. 

“I hardly know. You see, my dear, it is like this: 
Beverly’s expenses make a constant drain upon me for 
ready money, and, as I said, money is exceedingly hard 
to get hold of. Mr. Renfrew offers a good price for 
her and will pay cash. If you could get along without 
her-” 

“ Oh, I could get along without her. That is n’t 
it!” 

“ It is not just the place I should like for her myself,” 


A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 171 


Colonel Trevilian admitted. '' But— well, the truth of 
the matter is that if I don’t do it, Beverly will have to 
come home. I should be very sorry for him to do that— 
in his last year.” 

Why don’t you hire out one of the men ? ” 

I can’t do it. Everything is in such an unsettled state 
that nobody wants help that he can do without. 

Mrs. Trevilian knit three full rounds before she spoke. 
When she was at the middle of the needle, she folded the 
sock together and looked at her husband. 

Mr. Trevilian, Liz belongs to me. She is not going 
to Mr. John Renfrew’s.” 

She spoke very quietly. In the whole course of her 
married life, it was the first time that the question of 
mine and thine had come up. As in the case of most Mis- 
souri women, her property, which was large, had been 
taken into the common fund and was known thencefor- 
ward as his. They had always lived in such abundance 
that this had never created a ripple between them. They 
hardly knew that there was any other way to do. Su- 
preme in her own domain, she had never in her life before 
interfered in his. 

'' Mr. John Renfrew’s is not a safe place for Liz. Her 
mother served us faithfully. I will not see her child 
harmed while I live.” 

“ Then Beverly will have to come home.” 

Very well. He may come home. He will never be < 
educated at Liz’s expense.” 

The Trevilians were gentlefolk. They never quarreled. 
The swift fingers had knit twice three rounds before the 
Colonel spoke. 

I think, perhaps, you are right, my dear, as you usu- 
ally are.” 

He sighed inaudibly. He wanted very much for Bev- 
erly to graduate from the University of Virginia. 


172 ORDER NO. 11 

That night, when they were in their own room, his wife 
said : 

I donl know but it is better, anyway.’’ There was 
no need of her saying, or his asking, what. If old Vir- 
ginia should go, he ’d be sure to go with her if he was 
there.” 

'' Old Virginia will go ! ” he answered. ‘‘ You can de- 
pend on that ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX 


A WORKING, BUZZING, STINGING HIVE 

S PRING had come. Down in the woods the anemones 
were holding up tinted cups on slender, wiry stems 
that swayed with every passing breeze. The violets and 
bloodroot and adder's-tongue and all the rest were wait- 
ing only to have the dead leaves pushed away to prove to 
the world that they were doing their part, if nobody was 
looking on. 

Virginia, with a restlessness which she never even 
asked herself to explain, tramped over the creek banks 
for dogwood and redbuds. They were not altogether 
pleasant excursions to Virginia. The dogwood and red- 
buds were so high. They made her think all the time 
about Gordon and Beverly when she tried to reach them. 
And she was troubled about Beverly. He was at home 
now. He could n’t stay out the year. But — he seemed 
preoccupied, and not like the Beverly of old. Then he 
was always finding some reason for going down to Mr. 
Whalen’s — at least he went down that way. 

It was no wonder that he was restless. Everybody was, 
for that matter. And anything was better than for him 
to go in the other direction, Mrs. Trevilian thought, with 
a shudder; for at Independence they were recruiting and 
drilling and doing all sorts of warlike things. Virginia 
hoped secretly he would join the Grays.” It would be 
glorious to go to war ! It was not that that troubled her 
I about Beverly. 

She and Sallie made rebel flags out of scraps of silk. 
173 


174 


ORDER NO. 11 


Sallie had been strictly loyal until Beverly’s return. Then 
the principles imbibed from her uncle were swept away 
in an evening. It took just that long for Beverly Tre- 
vilian to convert her. Beverly was so handsome! He 
would look elegant in gray, she confided to Virginia. 

It was not plain sailing with the flags. They had great 
difficulty with their stars, which looked more like star- 
fish than celestial luminaries fit to adorn the new nation’s 
banner. They began to hope that no more States would 
secede. They took one, very straight and plumb as to 
its crimson bars,” but shaky as to the field, to show to 
Mammy. Nothing was ever quite finished with Virginia 
till Mammy had inspected it. They had fastened it to a 
lead-pencil for a staff. 

An’ dat ’s ole Figinny’s flag!” said Mammy, hold- 
ing it up and looking at it critically. Ole Albemarle, 
Miss Figinia ? Humph ! Dat little thing got de ’shorance 
to wave ! Ain’t you chil’n gwineter make me a Albemarle 
flag?” 

You can have this one,” said Virginia, eying the 
stars with manifest disapproval. '' I think I can improve 
on this.” 

And so Mammy became the possessor of a rebel flag. 
Little did they dream where it would rest at last. 

Virginia made one and sent it to Gordon. Pinned to 
it was the Jegend : 

This is the flag that the friends of Virginia fight for.” 
Whether the State or the girl she did not specify. 

While Sallie and Virginia were busy with their banner- 
making, Mrs. Trevilian and Miss Nannie were prepar- 
ing for war of another kind, less glorious, perhaps, than 
that which filled their minds, but fraught with dangers 
stem enough if the truth were known, for a brigade of 
women was to be brought together for a whole day in 
the spring of ’6i. 


A WORKING HIVE 


175 


They were going to clean the church, —a useless labor, 
if they had only known it, for within a twelvemonth it 
would be in ashes. 

'' Now, Nan,'’ said Mrs. Trevilian as she took a last 
look at the array of buckets, mops, and brooms that Uncle 
Reuben had mustered for the fray, “ let me give you one 
last warning. Don’t— say— anything ! ” 

Sister Bettie, I ’m not going to say a thing unless old 
Mrs. McTavish gets after me. But that old woman ir- 
ritates me beyond measure ! She always rubs my fur the 
wrong way ! If you see her coming, I want you to head 
her off, for I feel it in my bones that if she tackles me 
I ’ll say something ! What business has she being Union ? 
I don’t mind it in old man Chandler and Lois and people 
like that. It ’s natural for them, I suppose. But old Mrs. 
McTavish is a Virginian ! ” 

“ Oh, well,” said Mrs. Trevilian, soothingly, she ’s 
from western Virginia, you know.” Apparently, western 
Virginia did not count. 

I do hope Miss Tiny and Miss Tony won’t go,” 
mused Miss Nannie. They are worse than I am.” 

“Oh, yes!” assented Mrs. Trevilian; “they haven’t 
any sense ! ” 

“ I never heard anybody carry on as they do,” said Miss 
Nannie. “ Miss Tiny told me yesterday, when I was there, 
that their brother Jeems was all they had, but they would 
willingly see him offered up on old Virginia’s altar.” 

“ Have they heard what he is going to do ? ” 

“ No. But Miss Tiny nearly took my head off when 
I asked her the same thing. ‘ Do ? ’ she said in her most 
dignified manner, — the one, you know, that makes you 
feel that you could crawl through the eye of a needle and 
would like to! — ^ My dear! he is a Virginian. That is 
sufficient! ’ But Miss Tony told me that they sent every 
day to the office for the letter. I believe it would kill them 


176 ORDER NO. 11 

if he did n’t go with the South. But, of course, he 
will.” 

I am not so sure of that,” said Colonel Trevilian, 
looking up from the St. Louis Republican.” “ It will 
depend entirely on how it strikes him. I went to school 
with Jeems Bascom. He is as hard-headed as they are.” 

As they were on their way to the church, Mrs. Whalen’s 
rockaway drove up beside them. 

'' I ’m hurrying on,” she said ; “ but I must stop to tell 
you something, Mrs. Trevilian. Did you know you had 
offended Mrs. Tigerman very much by not giving her 
a special invitation to come to-day ? ” 

'‘Well, why should I? It’s not my party. And she 
was in church when the notice was given out. I saw her.” 

" Yes, she was. But she heard of your sending word 
to Mrs. Pasco and myself and one or two others, who 
were not there, and she feels dreadfully aggrieved that 
she did not have a special invitation. Her feelings are so 
hurt she says she would n’t think of coming now.” 

" It ’s a good thing,” remarked Miss Nannie, while 
Mrs. Trevilian looked quite disturbed. “ Anybody that 
has such fragile feelings as that, had better put them on 
the top shelf out of the way and stay at home to watch 
them ! Around with a dozen other women is no place for 
them, certainly. Did you ever see such people, Mrs. 
Whalen?” 

" Never. They stand with a chip on their shoulder 
all the time — both of them— he is as bad as she is.” 

" And people that are looking out for slights, always 
find them,” said Mrs. Trevilian. " I ’ve noticed that.” 

And Mrs. Whalen, assenting heartily, drove on. 

It was on a Saturday, the eleventh of May, that the 
bucket-brigade met at Hickory Grove church,— a peace- 
ful army enough, for they all went to work as if they 
were dumb. Every woman was on her guard ; for every 


A WORKING HIVE 


177 


one knew that she held within her breast a powder- 
magazine that would explode the moment the spark was 
struck. 

That church was soon in the midst of an upheaval. 
Each woman had brought a negro woman with her, and 
several had brought men. By noon the strips of carpet- 
ing from the pews made the grove look like a bannered 
hall, the spittoons were out sunning, and the floor was 
drinking in soap-suds. Nobody had talked. Everybody 
had worked. And peace reigned. 

They had their dinner in the grove. Miss Nannie 
waited till Mrs. McTavish was seated and then sat down 
on the other side. 

'' Mrs. Trevilian, I see Beverly is back,” said Mrs. 
Whalen. “ Is n^t that unexpected ? ” 

No’m,— not exactly. We thought it best for him to 
come. Things are so unsettled — ” 

My! I should say so! ” broke in Mrs. McTavish, as 
she reached for a pickle. '' I was tellin’ him yesterday 
that I was glad all ourn was girls. It seems like, ef this 
war goes on,— and, dear knows, it looks like it was goin' 
to, — that everybody will be uneasy that ’s got boys.” 

Yes,” said Mrs. Trevilian, gently; “yes.” She had 
been bearing that load for weary months. “ Mrs. Lay, are 
your peas ready to stick yet ? ” 

“ I don’t see how anybody can gabble about peas and 
such like when the country is in the condition it ’s in ! ” 
Mrs. McTavish said in an indignant aside to Mrs. Dev- 
ereau. She had opened the subject purposely. 

“ I reckon it ’s better for us to keep the conversation 
on peas than war,” returned that lady. “ It does n’t do 
for women to talk, Mrs. McTavish.” 

“ Well, there ’s one thing I ’m going to ask Miss Nannie 
Trevilian before I get away from here! I heard she 
said-” 

1£ 


178 


ORDER NO. 11 


Oh, I would n’t try to ferret out reports, Mrs. Me- 
Tavish. You can hear anything these days.” 

They were talking in pairs around the table-cloth, when 
one of those horrible unexpected pauses that sometimes 
fall upon a company as if by concerted action, descended 
to Mrs. Whalen’s confusion. 

“ You know they ’ve taken the St. Louis Arsenal,” she 
was saying in a low tone. It sounded preternaturally 
distinct. 

Mrs. Lay threw herself hastily into the breach. 

“Mrs. Dyson, how is your meat keeping this year?” 
She had forgotten, in her haste, that this was a winter 
subject of conversation. 

And so they dodged the thing that absorbed them all ; 
for even as they talked of household matters, and flowers, 
and green things growing, they were thinking of war and 
their boys. 

“ Miss Nannie,” began Mrs. McTavish, as the pie was 
started around, “ I ’ve been layin’ off to ask you about 
something I heard you said.” 

Miss Nannie rose. 

“ I have n’t time to talk about anything now, Mrs. Mc- 
Tavish. I ’m going at that pulpit right away. Sister 
Bettie, save me some of that ribbon-cake to eat on the 
way home.” 

But when they got back to the church they found their 
political affinities and their tongues. Scattering out in 
twos and threes, a soft babel arose. They had stood it as 
long as they could. 

If the recording angel had flitted from one group to 
another, he would have heard fragments that told the 
story of where their interest was. 

“ You know the governor has called for troops,” said 
Mrs. Swamscott, taking a fresh piece of paper for the 
window she was polishing. She spoke guardedly, and 


A WORKING HIVE 


179 

her companion lowered her tone in reply, for Mrs. Whalen 
was passing just then. 

Mrs. Whalen/’ called Mrs. Swamscott from her ele- 
vation, “ I was just saying to Miss Marthy that it did 
seem like the men might refrain from tobacco in the 
house of the Lord.” 

Well, now, it does so ! ” returned Mrs. Whalen, as her 
woman deposited the spittoon in the pew whence it had 
been removed. Then they discussed the frailties of the 
other sex with great unction, for that was perfectly safe 
neutral ground on which there was no danger of disa- 
greement. 

'' I thought I would n’t let her think we were talking 
about her,” remarked Mrs. Swamscott, later, to Miss 
Marthy. Mrs. Whalen is a mighty clever woman, if 
they are Union.” 

And so is he,” agreed Miss Marthy, not noticing the 
sex complications in which she was involving the gentle- 
man in question. 

On her knees, where she had dropped to straighten the 
strip of carpet that Mrs. Pasco was tacking, Mrs. Tre- 
vilian was saying : ‘‘ No’m, I ’m afraid we can’t keep him. 
It is the ‘ Independence Grays ’ he wants to go with.” 
She had said it a good many times before, on bended 
knees, with no ear to listen but the Infinite. 

“ I know just how you feel,” sighed Mrs. PascOo 
John went yesterday.” 

Up in the pulpit, where they were dusting and placing 
the hair-cloth sofa and the chairs that flanked it on either 
side. Miss Nannie’s energetic whisper was heard : 

“ Of course they have a right to secede ! Why, brother 
William says—” 

The angel caught the rest. 

They were nearly through when Mr. Swamscott ap- 
peare i in the doorway. He had been over to Cass County 


i8o 


ORDER NO. 11 


and stopped in on his way home. He had a paper in his 
hand and was laboring under great excitement. 

“ Have you-all heard the news ? ” 

''No. What is it?’' asked Miss Nannie, speaking for 
the company. 

" They 've taken Camp Jackson.” 

''What! Camp Jackson? Who has?” 

" Captain Lyon. The boys are all prisoners war 
now.” 

His news was like fire to tow. Some of those pris- 
oners were from Jackson County. From all quarters of 
the State young men had gone to that encampment to 
learn something of the art of war under General Frost. 
And they were captured, actually made prisoners of war, 
by a Yankee cqptain ! 

" There 's more to it than that,” said Mr. Swamscott. 
" As they were going back to the city with the prisoners, 
they halted them near Olive Street and kept them waiting 
for several hours. Of course a big crowd gathered,— 
men, women, and children, — and it seems that the crowd 
was jeering at the troops and calling them ' blackguards ’ 
in derision. You know, one of the German companies 
calls itself ' die Schwartze Garde,’ and it was n’t very 
hard to make ' Dutch blackguards ’ out of that. 

" Well, nobody seems to know just how it happened, 
but the Dutch began firing on the people.” 

" The helpless, unarmed people? Was anybody hurt? ” 

" Hurt! I tell you, they just mowed them down. One 
that they killed was a baby in arms.” 

The women broke into horrified ejaculations. 

" Oh, the wretches! ” cried Miss Nannie. " But what 
can you expect when a foreign foe is permitted to invade 
the State. I wonder what Frank Blair thinks now of his 
Home Guards ! ” 

" This is awful ! ” breathed Mrs. Lay. " Do you 


A WORKING HIVE 


i8i 


think it is possible it has been exaggerated, Mr. Swam- 
scott ? ” 

I 'm afraid not, Mrs. Lay. It comes pretty straight. 
The ^ Republican ’ says the wounded and dying made that 
field look like a battle-ground.” 

How did the people take it ? ” asked Miss Nannie. 
^‘Weren’t they wild? The black Dutch!” 

Mr. Swamscott read on : 

It is impossible to describe the intense exhibition of 
feeling manifested last evening. The streets were 
thronged— imprecations loud and long were hurled into 
the darkening air— the drinking-saloons and other resorts 
were closed simultaneously at dark— and the windows of 
dwellings were fastened for fear of a general riot. The 
offices of the ' Missouri Democrat ^ and the ‘ Anzeiger des 
Westens ^ were placed under guard for protection.” 

‘‘ That old Dutch paper ought to be razed to the 
ground 1 ” exclaimed Miss Nannie, with flashing eyes. 
'' Missouri has warmed a viper in her breast that is ready 
now to sting her ! ” 

There was no reply to this. Nobody was ready just 
then to defend the “ Dutch,” as the Germans were uni- 
versally called. Undoubtedly, this act at the inception of 
the war had much to do with the very cordial detestation 
in which they were afterward held. 

“Oh! oh!'' cried Miss Nannie. ''Why didn’t they 
pass that bill to arm the State ! ” 

“ They ’ve passed it now. Miss Nannie. They were 
considering it yesterday when the news came of the cap- 
ture. The Union men were fighting it just as hard as 
they could when the governor came in and told them that 
the camp was captured and the State troops held as pris- 
oners of war. That was enough! Their opposition was 
gone ! In fifteen minutes that bill had passed both houses 
and was ready for the governor’s signature.” 


i 82 


ORDER NO. 11 


Is n’t that glorious ! ” cried Miss Nannie, her good 
resolutions cast to the winds. We ’ll get Missouri yet, 
Mr. Swamscott ! ” 

‘‘ Nan ! ” But Miss Nannie was past holding in now. 

'' And that is n’t all,” continued Mr. Swamscott. 

This happened yesterday, you know. The paper says 
that at midnight all Jefferson City was roused by the 
ringing of the church beMs. The legislature came hur- 
riedly together, and the governor notified them that he 
had just been informed of the approach of two of Blair’s 
regiments to capture the capital. Well, sir, they just 
went wild ! An act was rushed through both houses 
authorizing the governor to take such measures as he 
might deem necessary to repel invasion or put down re- 
bellion. And,”— he added in triumph,— if you ’ll believe 
me, they appropriated thirty thousand dollars to be used 
for that purpose ! ” 

'' Oh-h ! ” breathed Miss Nannie, '' if they had only 
done it before ! ” 

Mr. Swamscott folded his paper and put it in his 
pocket. Mrs. Trevilian, you ’d better be seeing after 
Beverly. I know I ’ve got to chain Isaac ! ” 

It was a good thing that Hickory Grove church was 
nearing completion, for interest in the Lx)rd’s house had 
suddenly abated. They were all eager to get home and 
tell the news- 

Uncle Reuben was loading up and Miss Nannie get- 
ting her things together, when Mrs. McTavish ap- 
proached. She was going to have that out if the State 
had gone to smash! 

Miss Nannie,” she began. 

The beleaguered lady turned upon her. 

^‘Well? What is it?” 

The tone was uncompromising. Miss Nannie was 
ready for anything now. 


A WORKING HIVE 


183 

The ladies all continued their preparations for depar- 
ture, but with one ear turned toward the combatants. 

‘‘ I heard you said something about me.” 

You did ! What did you hear ? ” 

I heard you said there wasn’t nobody from Virginia 
but the poor tackies in the mountains that was Union ! ^ 

A smile rippled over the faces looking into their bas- 
kets. '' I don't doubt she said it,” whispered Mrs. Swam- 
scott to Mrs. Devereau. 

“Did you hear it from good authority?” 

“ Yes 'm, I did ! ” 

“ Well,” said Miss Nannie, composedly, “ I don't know 
whether I said it or not. It sounds very much like me. 
But I 'll just tell you now, Mrs. McTavish, that I don't 
hold myself responsible one day for what I said the day 
before!” 

And with this the irate lady of Caledonian name and 
Hibernian proclivities was forced to be content. 


CHAPTER XX 


“ TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP I ” 

** And there was tumult in the air, 

The fife’s shrill note, the drums loud beat, 
And through the wide land everywhere 
The answering tread of hurrying feet.” 


capture of Camp Jackson with the subsequent 
X firing upon the crowd of spectators was a bomb that 
set Missouri ablaze. The State had been invaded ! 
Blood had been shed! Surely the fullness of time had 
come now! 

The river counties sprang to arms. Within a week 
they were hurrying to the capital— from Cooper and Cole 
and the Kingdom of Callaway.’' 

The '' Independence Grays ” went down with full 
ranks— Beverly in the forefront and Ike Swamscott be- 
side him. They carried the cannon captured from the 
arsenal at Liberty. A cannon was a thing to be proud 
of. Not every soldier who took up arms in Missouri took 
up more than the Lord had given him. 

But they did their best. Hunting-rifles were taken 
down from the antlers, and shot-guns and powder-horns 
called into requisition, as the flint-lock muskets of their 
Revolutionary forefathers had been. It was anything 
that could shoot 1 It seemed lucky for once that the Mis- 
sourians were a bellicose people. Revolvers were com- 
moner with them than with their brethren in the North. 

Beverly had gone forth buoyantly. It would not be 
184 


-TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP!” 185 

long, he said. And Virginia, believing him, had buckled 
on his sword with hands that did not tremble and eyes 
that shone. 

The two stood together at the horse-blocks just before 
he went away. He had been down the road toward Mr. 
Whalen’s — to say good-by, he said. 

Virge/’ he said suddenly, stooping to examine his 
saddle-girth, - why don’t you and Sallie and the rest of 
the girls ever go to see Lois Chandler ? ” 

- Lois Chandler ! ” repeated Virginia, wonderingly. 
She was thinking of war, not girls. “ Why should we ? ” 

- She is the prettiest girl in the neighborhood,— and 
she ’s a nice girl, too,— if her father did vote for Abe 
Lincoln.” 

She is awfully pretty,” assented Virginia, who was 
not without ability to see beauty in another girl, — '' and 
she ’s nice enough, too, I suppose. She always seemed 
so at school. But, brother, — you know. She ’s just not 
our kind. She says ‘ had n’t ought ’ and ^ how ? * and all 
that.” 

- Virge,”— Beverly’s tone was very serious now,— if 
the time ever comes when you can do a kindness to Lois 
Chandler, I want you to do it. She must be awfully 
lonely — did you ever think how cut off she is from every- 
body? And, besides,”— the girth needed tightening now, 
— a friend of yours thinks a good deal of her.” 

A friend of mine ! ” Virginia’s cheeks glowed with a 
sudden inflow of blood. '' Well, I ’m sure he ’s welcome 
to ! Who is this friend of mine ? ” 

He looked at her curiously a moment, and then threw 
back his head with his old-time hilarious laugh. He was 
going to speak, but just then his father joined them and 
the opportunity was past. 

Virginia pondered over his words not a little when he 
was gone. Why should she go to see Lois Chandler? 


i86 


ORDER NO, 11 


Suppose Gordon did think a good deal of her,— of course 
it was Gordon, —that was nothing to her ! He had always 
liked her when they were in school together— but so had 
Beverly and the rest of the boys. She was just the kind 
of a girl that boys always took to — pretty and clinging, 
and not much sense ! Perhaps it was her dependence that 
appealed to all the masculine hearts, she said to herself, 
scornfully. 

Perhaps it was n’t Gordon, after all, that he meant 
Then there came to her the recollection of what Gordon 
had said to her the day she tried to find out if it was Lois 
he had been walking with : If I or Beverly or any of 
the boys wanted to tell Lois Chandler good-by, why 
shouldn’t we?” ... Yes, it was Gordon! 

It was very lonely when Beverly was gone. So many 
of the boys were with him — Ike Swamscott and Lee Mc- 
Murtrie and John Pasco and the two Caldwell boys and 
— oh, ever so many! And it was not the young men 
alone. Ben Tolies had stood it till old Virginia went; 
then he said he could n’t '' go ag’in’ his native State.” 
And there were many just like him. 

There was a clattering back and forth in Jackson 
County. The recruiting officers scoured the country, and 
not in vain. 

The other side was not idle. From Kansas City 
Van Horn had gone to St. Louis and obtained permis- 
sion to organize a battalion. Recruiting had begun in 
earnest. 

The blight of war had fallen upon the ragged little town 
at the mouth of the Kaw. Business, except that growing 
out of military operations, was practically suspended. 
Gordon had intended settling there when he got his de- 
gree, but anybody with half an eye could see now that 
Kansas City, with its neighbors on the west was a place 
to leave if one could get away. A few months before it 


-TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP!" 187 

had been a thriving village of 2500. By May it had 
shrunk to half that size. 

On Grand Prairie they were bracing themselves for 
a shock. Mr. Caldwell had taken his negroes and his 
mules and gone to Texas. Jackson County was too close 
to the border for safety, he said. Tigerman, having little 
else in the way of personal property, had packed up his 
wife and children and gone— nobody knew where. Per- 
haps he, also, noticed that Jackson was pretty close to the 
border. 

Judge Saunders has taken his negroes down to Ar- 
row Rock,'' said Colonel Trevilian to his wife one day. 
He had just come from Independence. 

He has ? Do you think there is any danger ? " she 
asked anxiously. 

'' Not with ours," he said confidently. - I have no 
fears whatever of our negroes leaving us. Why should 
they ? They have always been treated well, and they have 
sense enough to know it." 

'' I don't know, father," Virginia said, looking up from 
the gown-yoke she was embroidering. “ Liz says Jake 
told her they would all have a farm if they went to Kan- 
sas, and wouldn't have to work any more. It has evi- 
dently been talked over." 

My dear," returned her father, with some irritation, 
you ought not to encourage Liz to talk about such 
things. It is preposterous I " 

'' I don't encourage her, father I I told her it was ri- 
diculous. I don't know where Jake got it from." 

Old man Chandler, probably," remarked Miss Nan- 
nie, with acerbity. 

Gordon came home in June— but not to locate in Kan- 
sas City. He had held himself until his diploma was 
earned, but his heart was keeping step to the drum-beat 


i88 


ORDER NO. 11 


of the nation. Pauhs message had come to him : I speak 
unto you young men because you are strong.’' What bet- 
ter use for his strength than to defend his nation’s flag? 

'' I knew you would go,” his mother sighed. '' I have 
been nerving myself to meet it. Oh, yes, I knov/ it is 
right, dear child ; but— I ’m afraid I am not made of such 
stuff as the Spartan mothers.” 

But Dr. Lay grasped his hand as man to man, and Gor- 
don felt his heart thrill with a new determination and 
strength. 

Go, my son, go ! Our country needs her bravest 
now ! ” 

Gordon went over to Keswick the next day. There 
had not been much communication between the families 
during the last few weeks, and Sallie was down in Cass 
on a visit. Beverly was gone— they knew that much— 
and so did he, for Sallie had written him how handsome 
he and Ike Swamscott looked in their new uniforms. 
Most of the troops were ununiformed, but the “ Grays ” 
were an exceptional company. 

He did not tell them where he was going, nor ask any 
of them to go with him. So many things had happened 
since he had seen them last,— so many things were likely 
to happen now!— and— he felt himself growing hot and 
cold as he thought of the differences between them. Care- 
fully put away, not for love of it, but for love of the 
fingers that made it, was the little rebel flag that she had 
sent him. How often he had thought of the message that 
came with it : “ This is the flag that the friends of Vir- 
ginia fight for ” ! What would she think of his enlisting 
to fight against it? 

But he knew perfectly well that, whatever she thought 
of it, he should do it. He had fought that battle first of 
all, and come off victor— though a little faint and spent, 
perhaps. 


-TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP!” 189 

He gave his bridle and a coin to the grinning negro 
who came shambling out from the rear. 

Howdy, Marse Gordon ! Thanky, suh ! How does 
yo^ copporosity seem to sagashiate, suh ? 

- All right, Jake. My corporosity is in prime condition. 
You have n’t forgotten how to talk dictionary, I see, since 
I Ve been away. How are you ? ” 

- Mighty po’ly, bless de Lawd, suh.” No well-bred 
negro ever owned up to being anything more than 
'' po’ly,” or - tole’ble ” at most. 

- You don’t look it,” said Gordon, giving the sleek 
face and well-fed body a critical glance. “ You are pos- 
sumin’. How ’s Ca’line ? ” 

'' Ca’line ’s jes’ tole’ble, suh. She ’s got a mis’ry in her 
chis’, Ca’line is. Marse Gordon, look like you favors yo’ 
paw mo’ an’ mo’ all de time. You jes’ de ve’y spit of 
’im. Yaas, suh, dat you is.” 

“Are the ladies at home, Jake?” 

Gordon’s heart was beating so that he was glad of the 
negro’s loquacity. It gave him time to steady himself. 

“ Yaas, suh. Dey all in de house,— -’sensin’ of Miss 
Figinia. She done gone to Independence to make a visit. 
Jes’ walk in, Marse Gordon. Dey done hyeard de pro- 
nouncement dat you ’d come, f’om yo’-all’s Bentley, 
wha’ ’s cornin’ over hyeah sparkin’ dat triflin’, no-’count 
Liz. I reckon dey ’s contemplatin’ yo’ arrival, suh.” 

They received him exactly as they would have done a 
year ago. They talked of his journey home, his school, 
his commencement, Virginia’s absence and the disappoint- 
ment she would feel at not seeing him, — everything but 
Beverly and the war. People grew very skilful in those 
days at threading the passages of conversation without 
running into shoal water. 

At last Gordon asked pointedly about Beverly. 

“ He is in Jefferson City,” Mrs. Trevilian said, with a 


ORDER NO. 11 


190 

little tremble of the chin. ‘‘We could n’t keep hin^ 
Gordon.” 

“ Some of us did n’t want to keep him ! ” Miss Nannie 
said, with flashing eyes. “ I gloried in his spirit.” 

Mrs. Trevilian talked straight on. 

Gordon’s heart sank. In many ways Virginia was like 
Miss Nannie. She was intense and sometimes imperious. 
And yet she was like her sweet mother, too,— -who was 
always reasonable. This was the undercurrent that was 
running in his mind while Mrs. Trevilian talked. 

She told him all about Beverly and the message he had 
/eft. Miss Nannie had been called away, and they talked 
more freely without her. 

“ He said he knew you would be for the Union, Gor- 
don, but that that should never come between you,” and 
Gordon felt a sudden rush of feeling to heart and eyes. 

He rose to go at last, and Mrs. Trevilian went with 
him out upon the pillared portico. Keswick had never 
looked more beautiful. A “ queen of the prairie ” was 
trained around one column, and a “ Baltimore belle,” with 
its full-set clusters and the fragrance one never forgets, 
was on the other. At the parlor window was a sweet- 
brier. He and Virginia had found it in the woods one 
day and planted it there. They were all doing their 
bravest. It was a time for Nature to help— and Mis- 
souri roses are riotous in June. 

They stood in silence. Not a word had been said about 
his plans. He looked out now over the scene before him 
with a sudden prophetic anguish of spirit. How peaceful 
it was ! how beautiful ! What would it be when he saw 
it again ? 

On the left was the summer-house. How often he and 
she had sat there together! Would they ever again? 

When he turned to Mrs. Trevilian his eyes were dim. 
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. 


-TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP!" 191 

It has been like home to me,” he said, - and— -I may 
not see it again.” 

Her hand closed over his. 

- You are going ? ” she said rather than asked. 

- 1 am going. I can't expect you to say, ‘ God speed,' 
Mrs. Trevilian, but give me your blessing.” 

She took him in her arms. He was almost like her 
own son to her. 

God keep you, my child ! I pray him that you two 
may never meet in battle ! ” 

- Heaven grant it ! But if we do— I do not need to tell 
you, Mrs. Trevilian, that this arm will never be raised 
against him.” 

- I believe it, Gordon,” she said. It comforted him 
afterward to remember her faith. 

And this was the sweet memory of Keswick he took 
with him. 


CHAPTER XXI 


OH, SISTER PHCEBE ! ” 

T hey were having a party at Mr. Delano’s in Inde- 
pendence the next night. Thank God, it is never 
all shadow anywhere or anywhen in this world ! They 
were in full tide of what the scoffing called “ Presbyterian 
dancing.” 

Mr. Delano was an elder, and, of course, could not be 
expected to countenance worldly amusements. Dancing 
he believed to be a device of the Evil One,— in fact, he 
knew it! His mind never experienced one fleeting doubt 
on this subject. His principles were ultramarine, and his 
practice— well, the young people in his house always stood 
in a ring instead of a parallelogram, the girls sandwiched 
between the boys, and then joined hands and “ circled to 
the left,” to the music of their own young voices, in the 
pious delusion that it was not a dance but a play! — good 
Mr. Delano looking on with approval and thanking God 
that these dear lambs were not as other lambs, nor even 
as the poor ungodly Episcopalians who fiddled openly 
and danced on the square. 

It was Oh, Sister Phoebe ! ” they were playing— the 
game that stands in all hearts of that day for youthful 
effervescence and the joy of life. It was another “ Mis- 
souri Compromise.” It has limbered the joints and satis- 
fied the cravings of whole generations of youthful sin- 
ners longing to dance and daring not. 

Even Mr. McTavish could see no harm in Oh, Sis- 
ter Phoebe ! ” though his more acrid spouse, after watch- 

192 


“OH, SISTER PHOEBE!” 


193 


ing it once, said that “ for her part, she could n’t see 
much difference between professors and worldlians,— one 
seemed about as limber- jointed as the other.” But the 
majority took Mr. McTavish’s view, and the Presbyterian 
youngsters got their share, after all, for Nature is rarely 
cheated. 

They were singing it gaily to-night, with a soft swish 
of skirts and the tread of slippered feet: 

Oh, Sister Phoebe, how merry were we 

When we sat under the juniper tree! 

The juniper tree-e, — heigh-o! heigh-ol 
The juniper tree-e,— heigh-o 1 ” 

Thus far it was always clear sailing, and everybody felt 
and looked natural. But in the next quatrain a choice 
was imminent, and those having any reasonable hope of 
being selected by the lone occupant of the ring looked 
away in rosy self-consciousness or cast coquettish glances, 
as the case might be. And now it was : 

Rise you up, Johnny, and choose you the one— 

Choose you the fairest, or else choose none! 

Or else choose none,— heigh-o ! heigh-o! 

Or else choose none,— heigh-o ! ” 

All this was preliminary, of course; for, with the 
maiden of his choice seated demurely beside him, Johnny 
or Tommy or Jimmy, or whoever the happy youth might 
be, had a cap in his hand with which to crown the cap- 
tured lady. For his guerdon he was to— but the song it- 
self tells it: 

Take this cap on your head — keep your head \varm; 

Take a sweet kiss and ’twill do you no harm! 


18 


194 


ORDER NO. 11 


will do you no harm,— heigh-o ! heigh-o! 

’T will do you no harm,— heigh-o! ’’ 

And probably it never did. None of us can remember 
the damage, anyv/ay, though we have no difficulty in re- 
calling the bliss. 

From time to time couples slipped out of the ring and 
promenaded up and down the piazza, which seemed built 
on purpose, running as it did the length of two generous 
Missouri rooms and the hall. Then there was the sum- 
mer-house in the yard, whose moonlighted doorway and 
shadowy nooks stood invitingly near. Of course, a 
place of any pretensions always had a summer-house. 

Virginia Trevilian was radiant that night in a dotted 
white Swiss, with blue shirred ribbons defining her snowy 
arms and neck, and a queen-of-the-prairie ’’ rose in her 
hair. John Delano had asked her if it were named for 
her. It might have been, considering her stateliness, the 
bloom on her cheek, and her prairie home. Somehow, 
nobody ever thought of Virginia as a country girl. She 
was simply from Jackson ’’ or the prairie.’^ 

She was talking animatedly to young Tevis when she 
heard her name pronounced behind her, in a stage whisper, 
by Uncle Joe, the negro man who waited on the door. 
She excused herself and stepped into the hall. 

''What is it. Uncle Joe?’’ 

" Dey ’s some young man waitin’ fur you outside. Miss 
Figinia. No’m, he say he won’t come in. He ’s waitin’ 
down dar by de white honeysuckle.” 

" Who is it ? Do you know ? ” 

" No’m. I don’t know him. Looks to me lak he "s one 
o’ dese hyeah Federals.” 

" Oh, no. Uncle Joe,” she laughed. " There ’s no Fed- 
eral that wants me ! or would get me if he did ! ” 

She ran lightly down the walk to the honeysuckle which 


-OH, SISTER PHCEBE! 


195 


covered a flaring fan-shaped frame out in the yard. A 
tall man stood in its shadow. She cast a half-scared 
glance toward the house as she saw the uniform of a 
soldier. 

‘‘ Did you wish to see me ? ’’ she asked, with head erect. 

I am Miss Trevilian.’’ The visor of the man’s fatigue- 
cap threw his face into shadow. 

‘‘ Virginia ! ” 

“ Why, Gordon Lay ! ” She put her hands impulsively 
in his, and then drew back. “ What are you doing in 
those clothes ? ” 

His heart sank. He had not seen her since September. 
Before her welcome, even, was her disapprobation made 
manifest. 

‘‘When did you get home from Kentucky?” 

“ The day after you went away, your mother said.” 

“ Did you go to see mother ? ” 

“ No. I went to see you, but you were gone. Then I 
came on here. I could n’t go without seeing you, Vir- 
ginia.” 

She dropped into a seat that stood at the foot of the 
honeysuckle, and he sat down beside her. They were en- 
veloped by its cloying sweet. The fragrance associated 
itself forever afterward with that hour. 

“ Gordon, are you really, really going ? ” His soldier 
dress had told the news. 

“ I am going. I have come to say good-by.” 

“ But, Gordon, why do you go ? I know you don’t feel 
as we do, but why must you go to fight your own people? 
For they are your own people ! ” 

“ Because I am needed,” he said simply. 

“ Did you know Beverly had gone ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Suppose you two should meet on the battle-field. 
Have you thought of it?” 


196 


ORDER NO. 11 


“ I have thought of it many, many times, Virginia. 
But — he did what he thought was right, and I must do 
the same. Do you blame me for it ? 

'' No. It is nl that. But oh, Gordon, it is so dread- 
ful ! Will you be where they will fire cannon and bombs 
and all those things that you canl dodge as you could a 
little bullet?^’ 

I shall go wherever they send me,'^ he said ; a sol- 
dier cannot choose.” 

'' When did you enlist? ” 

Yesterday.” 

The moonlight made the place like day, except for the 
shadow of the honeysuckle. 

'' Did mother see you in those clothes ? ” 

'' No. But I don’t believe it would have made any dif- 
ference with her if she had.” He was thinking of her 
parting blessing. 

'' Gordon ! Stand up.” 

He stood before her in the full strength of his young 
manhood. His uniform accentuated his height. 

She shivered and turned her head with a little gasp. 

‘'You are so tall! They would be sure to aim for 
you 1 ” 

The promenaders went back and forth on the piazza; 
black coats, and figures in voluminous skirts and rainbow 
tints, with gleaming bare arms, flitted past the French 
windows. The soft tramp of that endless circle came to 
them plainly ; there was a burst of gay laughter now and 
then ; and the song went on afresh : 

“ Oh, Sister Phoebe, how merry were we 1 ” 

Virginia drew her breath almost in a sob. It was al- 
ways in the past. 

“ How merry were we 1 how merry were we ! ” It 


‘‘OH, SISTER PHCEBE! 


197 


seemei! to her that it would never be are we again ! 
There was a tightening in her throat and a constric- 
tion about her heart. What good times they had had 
all their lives! But — it was over now!— with Beverly in 
one army and Gordon in the other. Oh ! it was too dread- 
ful ! And that wretched, senseless music ! 

When we sat under the juniper tree ! 

The juniper tree-e, — heigh-o ! heigh-o! 

The juniper—’’ 

She recalled how they used to wonder what the juniper 
tree was, and why Sister Phoebe had chosen that, and 
who Sister Phoebe was, anyway. 

But if the juniper tree was not in her catalogue of re- 
membered umbrage, almost everything else was— every- 
thing, certainly, that grew in Jackson County. And Gor- 
don was with her under them all ! 

There were the apple trees they used to rifle in the 
spring, and the haw bushes, and the crab-apple down in 
the pasture, whose blossoms, Gordon had told her, shyly, 
one day, were just the color of her cheek; she had always 
remembered that, for that was the day she first found out 
—oh, well!— and there were the locust trees in Dr. Lay’s 
yard, under which they had all sat and played ‘‘ Authors,” 
steeping themselves in perfumed bliss and care-free indo- 
lence, while the bees went back and forth, gathering honey 
for future needs and looking down in buzzing superi- 
ority upon the lazy mortals, never guessing that they, 
too, were gathering sweets for wintry days; and there 
were the redbuds and dogwood that the boys had scorned 
to have called trees at all ; and the giants of the forest 
that they climbed for grapes ; and the hickories and black 
walnuts of their youthful hunts, when they did not mind 
stained hands for the joy that was set before them of 


igS 


ORDER NO. 11 


luscious nuts and winter nights and Scott’s novels; and 
the big honey-locust under which they found the thorns 
to use as stilettos for the gown-yokes the girls were al- 
ways embroidering. Even the sapling spoke of him, — for 
one of her earliest recollections was of the boys’ holding 
down the slender trees for herself and Sallie to mount and 
ride. Gordon always showed her exactly where to sit 
and let her up gently, while Beverly misled the trusting 
Sallie and went into convulsions of laughter on the 
ground as she shot shrieking into the air. 

Oh, the good times they had had under the trees ! And 
Gordon was in them all! 

How merry were we! how merry were we I" 

'' Virge ! ” He dropped into the old name uncon- 
sciously. Suppose I should n’t come back. Would you 
care ? ” 

Care! It seemed to the girl, with the cannon-ball be- 
fore her eyes, that she would never care for anything else. 
There was little coquetry about Virginia Trevilian, and 
this was no time for it, had there been. They were facing 
tremendous issues, and they knew it. 

'' Oh, Gordon 1 ” she said, her heart in her eyes. 

And he took her to his arms. 

It was a poor wooing, but when two hearts have opened 
side by side from nascent bud to perfect flower, there is 
small need of words. 

“ Virginia, if I come back — ” 

If? She clung to him. 

He would come back ! He would ! He would! 
Surely the cannon-ball would pass him by! It must 
strike somebody, of course,— but not him! O God, not 
him! 

It is thus we pray, with inarticulate moans. It is thus 
we believe, in our helplessness and in our love. Some 
other one, not ours! we say, forgetting, in our anguish, 


^^OH, SISTER PHOEBE! 


199 


that he, too,— that other one— is somebody’s stay, some- 
body’s best-beloved. 

If I come back? ” he whispered. 

When you come back 1 ” she said, her form erect, her 
head thrown back, with shining eyes and lips that tried 
hard not to quiver. '' When you come back 1 ” 

She would not say if. 

And so they were betrothed. 

Virginia,” he said, after a while, I was half afraid 
to come to you in my uniform. I thought you might scorn 
me, perhaps, because I had it on. And yet— I wore it 
purposely.” 

She looked up at him proudly. 

‘‘ Why should I scorn you for oifering your life for the 
cause you think right? If, feeling as you do, you had 
stayed at home rather than risk losing me— then I should 
have scorned you. I can forgive a courageous act, even 
when it is against my side, but a base one — never 

Dearest, I think one could hardly do a base thing with 
love of you in his heart.” 

Virginia remembered those words long afterward and 
tried to believe they were true. 

** But oh, Gordon I ” she cried later. I do wish you 
were in the other army! I won’t know now which side 
to pray for 1 ” 

“ Pray that the right may win,” he said gravely. 


CHAPTER XXII 


BORDER WARFARE BEGINS 

O NE September morning, three months after that 
farewell under the honeysuckle, James H. Lane, 
with his Kansas troops, crossed the border into Missouri. 
Two weeks later, that body of cavalry, in their beautiful 
suits of blue, rode proudly back into Kansas City, the 
flag at their head— the flag men were dying for elsewhere 
—and in their rear the spoils of war. 

They had struck a blow for the Union. The little town 
of Osceola was in ashes — a score of her citizens,^ who 
had dared resist the looting of their homes, lay dead or 
dying. The contents of the wagons told the rest. 

'' Everything disloyal,” said General Lane, must be 
cleaned out ” ; and, remarks his biographer, never were 
orders more literally or cheerfully obeyed.” Indeed, if 
we may believe the record, the disloyalty most feared by 
this worthy brigade was that which lurked in feather-beds 
and silver plate. They must rid the land of that, first 
and foremost. 

What do you think of this, sir ? ” demanded Colonel 
Trevilian of Dr. Lay when the news of that raid reached 
Grand Prairie. 

It is damnable, sir,— damnable ! ” 

Mrs. Lay started. In all her life she had never heard 
her husband come so near swearing. The doctor’s in- 
dignation was so deep and his chagrin so evident that 
Colonel Trevilian really said less than he had intended to 
say. He could not help remarking, however, that he un- 


200 


BORDER WARFARE BEGINS 201 

derstood Lane’s own particular share of tne spoils to have 
been a fine carriage. 

“ It is true, sir,” returned the doctor. I have it from 
good authority. I hunted that story down when I was in 
Kansas City yesterday. That man, sir, is a disgrace to 
the flag he follows ! ” 

He wrote a letter that night to Governor Robinson of 
Kansas, whom he had met several times at the Gillis 
House, protesting, in the name of the Union men of the 
border, against such outrages. They will force men into 
the Confederate army. They have already done so.” 

To this letter Governor Robinson replied that, weeks 
ago, he had written General Fremont, commander of the 
Western Department, urging that Lane’s brigade be re- 
moved from the border. “ I have told him,” he wrote, 
that what we have to fear, and do fear, is that Lane’s 
brigade will get up a war by going over the line, commit- 
ting depredations, and then returning to our State.” 

Dr. Lay took this letter over to Mr. Whalen, and after 
some consultation they decided to write a letter of pro- 
test from Jackson County themselves. 

The letter was barely gone when still more alarming 
intelligence reached them. Osceola was several counties 
removed. The new danger was near at hand. 

At that time there were no railroads in western Mis- 
souri, and the transportation of supplies became a question 
of some importance. About two hundred prairie- 
schooners ” and five or six hundred oxen were collected 
at Kansas City to be sent to Jefferson City and Rolla as 
terminal points. General Lane’s Kansas troops were to 
escort them. 

If the people along the route had heard that the escort 
was to be the devil’s own, they would not have felt more 
consternation. They were wild with fear. Anything 
would be better than to risk such a visitation. Without 


202 


ORDER NO. 11 


realizing that they were promising what they could by 
no possibility be sure of fulfilling, some misguided ones 
pledged the government authorities that if only the escort 
were not sent, the train should be unmolested. 

The wagons started in two sections, twenty-four hours 
apart. They camped in neighboring towns, and in one ill- 
fated night were set upon, the wagons burned, and the 
cattle stampeded. It was probably the initial work of 
QuantrelFs guerrillas, but the penalty fell upon the in- 
nocent, not the guilty. 

It was made the pretext for Jennison’s first raid— Jen- 
nison, the scourge of the border, the man who fought with 
lasso and torch ! the scavenger whose grappling-hook took 
hold on all that was worth having and never let go! 

From that day the people of the hapless section ate the 
bread of adversity and drank the water of affliction. 

A nation is come up upon my land,’' lamented the 
Hebrew prophet, strong and without number, whose 
teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth 
of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked 
my fig trees. ... A fire devoureth before them : and 
behind them a flame burneth ; the land is as the garden of 
Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilder- 
ness.” 

He might have said it of the border. 

The Sabbath that followed will not be forgotten by 
this generation nor the next in that vicinity. It is called 
'' Jennison’s Day ” yet. 

The prophet Joel certainly had that devoted land in 
mind. 

'' Tell your children of it,” he says, '' and let your chil- 
dren tell their children, and their children another gen- 
eration. 

That which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust 
eaten ; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker- 


BORDER WARFARE BEGINS 203 


womi eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left 
hath the caterpillar eaten.” 

The pious palmers came in Lane's footpad brigade ; a 
swarm of locusts lighted when Jennison and his jay- 
hawkers swept down upon the land ; the noisome canker- 
worm, with mandibles multiplied, crept after them in the 
‘‘ red-legs.” When they got through there was nothing 
left for the caterpillar ! 

Grand Prairie's day came later. 

Through that fall and winter they waited and trembled. 
A counter-force was gathering in the woods around 
them. Seven or eight desperate men had met on Little 
Blue and chosen a leader. That leader was Quantrell — 
a name rivaling Jennison's for grim work from the first, 
and surpassing it when the last stroke fell. 

They were not all outlaws in the beginning. Most of 
them went in with a wound that rankled. Some of them 
had seen the accumulation of a lifetime go up in smoke, 
while their families were thrust out upon the pitiless 
prairies. Others had followed blooded stock to the 
Kansas border, and gone back to take up their guns. 
One had seen a father’s gray hairs dabbled in blood. An- 
other mourned a son. Many there were who went be- 
cause they could not stay in safety at home. 

Every raid of Jennison sent recruits to Quantrell. It 
was safer to be in the brush than at home — and they would 
have revenge, at any rate. 

The clans were gathering all along the Snai— that 
stream abounding in fastnesses and skirted by almost in- 
accessible precipices. It was a good spot for a lurking 
foe. It is historic yet. The hold-ups which have given 
rise to the worn joke, Gentlemen, we are now entering 
Missouri— secrete your valuables,” have many of them 
had their origin in this very ‘‘ Cracker Neck,” and some 
of the men who planned them are survivors of that band. 


204 


ORDER NO. 11 


On Grand Prairie they held their breath. They knew 
that when the shock came it would be terrific. And they 
were in the storm-center. 

Beverly was with Price, in southwest Missouri, making 
bullets from Granby lead and improvising cartridges. 
He was a lieutenant now and had sewed a bit of red flan- 
nel on his shoulder to show it, straps not being at hand. 

He and Gordon had fought against each other at Lex- 
ington, but neither knew it. Gordon was shut up with 
beleaguered Mulligan, and Beverly fought behind the 
hemp breastworks that won the day. Ike Swamscott 
stood beside him. 

They were all busy sewing one day at Keswick in the 
early spring of 1862. Mrs. Trevilian was finishing off a 
zouave jacket for Virginia, made from one of her fa- 
ther's black broadcloth coats turned. It was to go with 
a Garibaldi waist of magenta delaine which had once 
been white, but was now the fashionable war color by 
virtue of a bath in cudbear. Cudbear was an aniline dye 
which had the double merit of being bright and cheap. 
Everything was colored with cudbear during the war, 
from bonnet ribbons to carpet rags. 

There are some persons who have an unconquerable 
aversion to cerise and all kindred shades. They are usu- 
ally persons with good memories. The color brings up 
the instant suspicion, no matter how fine the article, that 
it has been dyed! 

The Garibaldi waist and the zouave jacket were a part 
of Virginia's outfit for a visit to Matt Delano. It was to 
be worn with a black silk skirt of Miss Nannie's, flounced 
to the waist. 

Virginia was trying on a pair of side-laced drap d’ete 
gaiters that Uncle Reuben had just soled for her. She 
had got the pattern from Lide Merri weather, and it had 
gone all over the neighborhood. Dry-goods and shoes 


BORDER WARFARE BEGINS 205 


were getting frightfully dear, but one could n’t go bare- 
foot. People hardly knew how they would have got along 
without the providential rise of that fashion in gaiters. 
Sometimes they were made of scraps of cloth, but drap 
d' etc was the approved material. Somehow, the foreign 
name took off the home-made curse. 

It ’s all ready to put on,” said Mrs. Trevilian, look- 
ing at the jacket admiringly. “ What do you think of it, 
Nan?” 

“ It is very pretty, indeed,” returned Miss Nannie, 
“ especially to have been made out of rags and gump- 
tion ! ” 

There was a loud knock at the front door just then, and 
Mrs. Trevilian opened it. Two armed soldiers stood out- 
side. 

'' Madam,” said one respectfully, we are belated, and 
would like to stay all night if we can.” 

Certainly,” said Mrs. Trevilian. No belated traveler 
had ever been turned from that door, no matter what was 
the color of his coat. 

If he had been a friend and a Virginian instead of a 
foe and a Kansan, he could not have received more cour- 
teous treatment. He and his companion were entertained 
until bedtime and then put into the guest-chamber, being 
invited, in the meantime, to remain to family prayers. At 
breakfast they were served with hot waffles, which they 
liked, being rather surfeited with hardtack. 

When they were starting away, the leader beckoned 
Mrs. Trevilian into the hall. 

''Madam,” he said, "you have treated me as a '‘gen- 
tleman. I will prove to you that I am one. Jennison is 
coming through here to-morrow. If you have anything 
of value, hide and lie like the devil!'* 


CHAPTER XXIII 


A DAY OF SOWING 


T he warning threw them into the utmost consterna- 
tion. What should they hide? Where would they 
hide it? 

Messengers were despatched to different places to give 
the alarm— to Mr. Swamscott’s, Mr. Pasco’s, Miss Mar- 
tha Robnett’s— all of whom had sons or brothers in the 
Southern army, and to a number of others who had taken 
no part in the war, but were known to be Southern sym^ 
pathizers. 

Virginia got on Rob Roy and rode over to Dr. Lay’s 
There was not much probability of the jayhawkers mo- 
lesting them. Colonel Trevilian thought, but it would do 
no harm to put them on their guard. 

Miss Nannie herself went over to Miss Tiny’s. There 
was never any telling how they would take things, she 
said. Their attitude verified the assertion. 

Miss Tiny, who was the leading spirit, simply stood up 
in the middle of the floor and declared that they would 
not turn over a hand. When her position was defined. 
Miss Tony supported it. 

Were they receivers of stolen goods, she demanded, 
that they must put things into hiding? Certainly not! 
If these cutthroats and thieves chose to rob and kill, let 
them do it 1 If they had to be overrun by an abolitionized 
North, life was not worth much, anyway. No! She 
should hide nothing! 

'' But, Miss Tiny,” urged Miss Nannie, '' they proba- 
206 


A DAY OF SOWING 


207 


bly won^t kill you, and they will take your silver. You 
don^t want to eat with pewter spoons just because we are 
in the hands of the abolitionized North, do you ? ’’ 

'' I shall hide nothing,'' said Miss Tiny, firmly. It 
would be undignified and unworthy a Virginian to con- 
cede in such a manner any possible control they might 
have over my property ! I hope I am not so lost to what 
—to what—" 

She never finished it. She was accustomed to ask her- 
self in any unexpected emergency : What would they 
do in my native State ? " or to say promptly in any known 
case : They never do so in Virginia." To-day, the props 
were all knocked from under her. She was without pre- 
cedent. 

“ Miss Tiny," Miss Nannie said, desperately, if you 
won't do that, there is only one other thing to do. Bro- 
ther William says to tell you you must put yourself under 
the protection of your brother in the Federal Army. He 
says to show them the letter you received from your bro- 
ther Jeems telling of his determination to stand by the 
Union, and tell them that if they harm you in any way 
they will have to answer for it to a United States officer. 
He thinks that even the jayhawkers will not dare to mo- 
lest the sisters of General Bascom." 

At the beginning of this message Miss Tony had 
glanced with startled apprehension at her sister. That 
name had never been spoken even between themselves 
since the day the letter came. But a surging hope rose in 
her heart. This would be such a reasonable way of escape 
from the danger that threatened them. She waited, 
breathless, for her sister's reply. 

Miss Tiny did not falter. She was as white as she 
would be when she was dead, but the hard lines around 
the mouth did not soften. She looked straight into the 
eyes of her visitor. 


2o8 


ORDER NO. 11 


We have no brother” she said. 

Miss Tony fell back in her chair and Miss Nannie went 
home in a rage. 

'' They deserve to lose everything they have ! she told 
her brother. 

At Dr. Lay’s, Virginia heard news that put the jay- 
hawkers out of her mind. Gordon had been ordered 
South. He was coming down the next night to say 
good-by. 

What had taken place under the honeysuckle was a 
sweet secret between these two. They had never confided 
it to a soul. Engagements were not made public then as 
now. But Mrs. Lay put her arms tenderly around Vir- 
ginia when she went away and drew her to her heart. 
Perhaps she guessed. 

There was a scurrying around on Grand Prairie that 
day. At Keswick they hid the silver and the little money 
they still had, and Colonel Trevilian’s best suit, and Bev- 
erly’s that he had left. It did not occur to them to hide 
women’s clothing, which was unfortunate. Over the 
parlor was a dark garret, entered from the hall bedroom. 
Such valuables as they could collect were thrust in here, 
the door was papered over, a bed put up against it, and 
they felt reasonably secure. 

There was not much sleep at Keswick that night, nor 
elsewhere on Grand Prairie. In the morning the Philis- 
tines were upon them. 

The Trevilians really had very little idea what they 
were to expect; but they supposed, in the simplicity of 
their souls, that this was an army on its way somewhere, 
and that Jennison would be at its head. As they watched 
the soldiers coming up the road, their bayonets glittering 
in the morning sun, they were surprised to see how few 
there were,— only eight. 

This must be just the advance-guard,” said Miss Nan- 


A DAY OF SOWING 


209 


nie. But in a moment some government wagons rolled 
into view, — empty ones, as they found out later, — and no 
more soldiers appeared. 

‘'Can that be Jennison?'' asked Miss Nannie, as she 
and her niece peered through the Venetian blinds, — “ the 
one at the head, I mean.— Why-y! Haven’t I seen that 
man somewhere ? ” 

Virginia was thinking, with a sudden sinking of her 
heart, that she had seen the one behind him. They had 
no time, however, for further investigation, for the squad 
had now passed beyond the range of their vision. 

“ Aunt Nan ! ” said Virginia. “ I believe in my soul 
that is—” 

The sentence was unfinished, for at that moment there 
was a resounding, imperious knock at the door with the 
butt-end of a rifle. 

Colonel Trevilian went to the door, and the three wo- 
men crowded around him. Thus, when the door was 
opened, it happened that the whole family confronted — 

Mr. Tigerman! 

And what could be worse to confront in such a moment 
than a small vindictive soul, nursing a fancied grievance, 
and clothed with a little brief authority? 

“ Good morning, Tigerman,” said the Colonel, as 
though he had met him yesterday. 

The man swelled up like a frog. His day had come 
now. 

''Lieutenant Tigerman, if you please, when you speak 
to me 1 ” he said brusquely. 

“Ah! Lieutenant Tigerman. And what can I do for 
you, sir ? ” 

“ I want your arms— and that pretty quick I ” He ig- 
nored the ladies with fine disdain, remembering a time 
when one of them had ignored him. “ Come 1 I don’t 
want any of your palaver 1 ” 

14 


210 


ORDER NO. 11 


‘‘We have no arms/' said Colonel Trevilian. “ They 
were all taken from us at the beginning of the war by 
Colonel Jennison's orders, as you must know." 

Virginia had been scanning the faces behind the lieu- 
tenant. There were but six of them. The one she was 
looking for was not there. 

Tigerman pushed past the group in the hall and 
strode into Mrs. Trevilian's room on the left. How 
often he had longed to enter that house and hold fa- 
miliar converse with its inmates! Well, the time had 
come at last ! 

“ Unlock that drawer 1 " he commanded, pointing to a 
mahogany bureau, “ and don't give me any more of your 
damned impertinence 1 " 

There were seven armed men against him, and Colonel 
Trevilian unlocked the drawer. 

While Tigerman was going through the bureau, and a 
soldier standing guard, the other men were scattering 
through the house. When this raid into Jackson County 
was planned, Tigerman had boasted with an oath that he 
would “ gut " Keswick, — the rest might go where they 
pleased, but he would have that for his share, — and he had 
called for volunteers to assist. The men understood their 
privileges and availed themselves of them. 

Finding that it was plunder and not blood they were 
after, Colonel Trevilian left them and hurried down to 
his stables, and the three helpless women stood by and 
watched the ravaging of their home. 

Upon the pretext of looking for concealed weapons, 
wardrobes were rummaged and drawers ransacked. 
Trunks were emptied on the floor to make room for such 
things as they wanted to carry away— silk dresses, furs, 
jewelry, table-linen— all was grist that came to their mill. 

Two of the men spying around went into the hall bed- 
room. 


A DAY OF SOWING 


21 I 


It seems to me that 's a queer place for a bed/' said 
one, looking around with a practised eye. 

They whirled it aside, and the patch of new paper told 
its story. They did not even have the trouble of hunting 
up the Trevilian valuables. They were collected ready 
for them. 

Miss Nannie stood by, speechless with rage. When 
they took her pearls— her beautiful necklace and brooch 
and pendant earrings that were to be Virginia's on her 
wedding day— her voice returned. 

“ You are brave soldiers ! " she cried, maddened past 
all sense of fear. '' Is this the way you fight your coun- 
try's battles, — filching jewelry from bureau drawers?" 

The man laughed lightly. 

You are a rebel, are n't you ? " 

'^YeSj I 'm a rebel— to the backbone! If I had ever 
been Union, I would n't own it now 1 " 

Nan! 

But Miss Nannie was past stopping, even by that soft 
voice. 

“ Well, I guess we have a right to confiscate rebel 
goods," said the man, holding up an ashes-of-roses silk 
and then laying it in the trunk. 

Do you know what Florence Nightingale said ? " de- 
manded Miss Nannie. 

“ I believe I have n't the honor of Florence's acquain- 
tance. What did she say ? " 

She said, ' Governments confiscate ; soldiers steal.' " 

Mrs. Trevilian caught her by the arm and shook her. 

Nan 1 these men will shoot you 1 " 

'' Sister Bettie, I don't care if they do ! I will say what 
I think of it ! It 's infamous I " 

'' Go ahead ! " said the man, good-humoredly. It does 
you good, and it don't hurt us." 

In another room, Virginia was pleading for her zouave 


212 


ORDER NO. 11 


jacket and drap d' ete gaiters. It was no use. Ahab 
coveted the garden, even to the snowdrops and the lilies 
of the valley. 

The government wagons were driven close to the door. 
Into them went household goods of every description- 
beds, mattresses, furniture, silk quilts, rose blankets, 
even heirlooms and family portraits. Mrs. Trevilian 
begged for the portraits, but Lieutenant Tigerman had a 
taste for the beautiful, if not for the good and the true, 
and family portraits are scarce in a new country. 

Colonel Trevilian’s best suit had been thrust hastily into 
Logan’s box, in the hope that the negroes’ belongings 
would not be searched. Vain hope! A tall soldier drew 
them out with gloating eyes. 

“ Fur de Lord’s sake, master,” said the negro, '' don’t 
take my breeches ! Dem ’s de ones I gwineter be married 
in.” 

The man took a look at the long legs in his grasp and 
then at the squat figure of the darky. 

'‘You’re lying!” he said. "By the length of them, 
they belong to that long-legged old rebel in the house.” 

Virginia kept close to her father that day. She soon 
left the house to her mother and Miss Nannie. Locking 
her arm in his, she went with him as he tried to save his 
stock. While the others were at work in the house the 
day before, he had been busy outside. Rex, his blooded 
bull, had been taken down into the brush and corraled. 
The more valuable animals of other kinds were disposed 
of in like manner. They might have saved themselves 
the trouble. When the men came they called for Rex by 
name. His fame had gone abroad, and they had come for 
him. 

It was when they were getting Rex that Virginia came 
face to face with Emmons Baird. He half spoke, being 
taken at a disadvantage, for he had not expected to see 


A DAY OF SOWING 


213 

her here. She only looked him over with scornful eyes. 
It was he that she had seen, then. She thought so. 

Her look angered him as her words had once before. 

“ I Ve come back,” he said insolently, '' to keep com- 
pany with you.” 

I see,” she said quietly. You went away like a 
thief in the night, and you Ve come back like— a thief in 
the daytime. I suppose you can’t help it.” 

Colonel Trevilian stood by, as many another man on 
Grand Prairie did that day, utterly powerless, as his 
choice herd was driven off. He would not beg. It would 
have done no good if he had. They needed stock. 

Of all the people on that place and all the things they 
had set out to do, only Mammy was successful in holding 
her position. She had undertaken to save the meat. 

They had fed soldiers before, and Mammy was tired of 
it. Moreover, there was the constant fear that the meat 
might some day be carted off. She set her wits to work 
to devise a plan whereby this might be prevented, and 
Mammy’s wits were not to be despised. Somehow and 
somewhere, she had got hold of a spoiled ham. She kept 
it in a box, ready for the emergency. 

That day one of Lieutenant Tigerman’s soldiers came 
to the kitchen door and ordered dinner for twelve men. 
(Of course teamsters have to be fed as well as men that 
bear arms for their country.) 

Mammy had se^n the lieutenant looking into the 
smoke-house, and she recognized the fact that the emer- 
gency had come. She drew forth the ham and a turkey 
wing, talking volubly as she did so to prevent the man’s 
getting away. She made savage passes at the meat, but 
did not cut into it. 

“ Hurry up, old woman ! We can’t stay here all day! 

Mammy flirted the wing higher and higher. 


214 


ORDER NO. 11 


Yaassir, Marse Colonel, I ’s hurryin^ all I kin. I jes’ 
breshin’ de skippers off dishyeah meat. Dey awful ser- 
vigroiis, skippers is, but I ’ll git ’em out toreckly. Look 
hyeah, Marse Colonel ! ” 

The man came close and surveyed the meat. Ugh ! 
— throw that to the hogs ! Have n’t you got anything 
else?” 

Nothin’ but middlin’*” said Mammy, regretfully. 

We-all got some mons’us good fat middlin’. Look lak 
de skippers don’t keer so much fur de side meat.” 

Neither do we. Uncle Sam gives us enough sow- 
belly. Have n’t you got any chickens ? ” 

Nary a chicken,” said Mammy, glancing down toward 
the pasture as she spoke, in mortal terror lest the recreant 
fowls that she had been at pains to tie in a thicket should 
have escaped and taken this inopportune time for a 
stroll. 

Just then Lieutenant Tigerman came around the house. 

I don’t know but we ’d better go on to the next place 
for dinner. Lieutenant. Look at this meat.” 

Lieutenant Tigerman took one look and then stepped to 
the smoke-house door. A goodly array of hams hung 
from the joists. 

Are they all like that ? ” he asked. He was intending 
to fill in vacant spots with hams. 

'' Yaassir, dis jes’ a fair sample, I reckon,” said 
Mammy, respectfully. '' We-all had mons’us bad luck 
wid de meat dis yeah.” 

It is likely that if Colonel Trevilian had heard her, he 
would have upset the whole successful venture. He 
would rather have lost his hams than his reputation for 
curing them— that is, he would in ’62. 

The men turned away. Lieutenant Tigerman spoke a 
word to the soldier ready with the ladder, and Mammy 
put the ham back in the box with a chuckle. 


A DAY OF SOWING 215 

'' You done mighty well dat time, ole sow-leg ! I gwine 
try you an’ de skippers ag’in ! ” 

And she did. 

When that cavalcade crossed the boundary between the 
two States it looked like the train of some barbaric con- 
queror. All it lacked was the captives in chains. It 
stretched out miles and miles in length— herds of cattle, 
flocks of sheep, droves of swine. Blooded stock was rare 
in Kansas then. Many a man got his start that day. 
Behind them was despair. 

The next day Lieutenant Tigerman drove a government 
wagon into his private yard in the outskirts of Lawrence. 
Mrs. Tigerman came out to assist in the unloading. 

'' My land ! ” she said admiringly. Ain’t that a mat- 
tress worth having ! There must be forty pounds of hair 
in it.” Mrs. Tigerman had usually lain on shucks. “ I 
bet they hated to see that go ! ” 

Mr. Tigerman set down his end of a heavy pier-glass 
that had been the pride of Keswick and the country 
round. As he looked at it now, even he had his doubts 
about its feeling at home on his wife’s rag-carpet. But 
then, — there might be other trips and other carpets! He 
took oif his coat— his beautiful coat of blue, with the lieu- 
tenant’s straps— and wiped his brow. 

I tell you,” he said firmly, this Union’s got to be 
preserved, no matter what it costs ! There ain’t any sac 
rifices we can make that is too great ! ” 

That there ain’t 1 ” asseverated his wife, fervently, 
shaking out the folds of Miss Nannie Trevilian’s lavender 
silk. “ I ’m nothing but a poor weak woman, and it ain’t 
much I can do, but I ’m going to stand by the govern- 
ment to the last 1 Did you git any spoons ? ” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR 

R eprisals came. That train was hardly out of 
the State before Mr. Westover, a Union man, was 
called out by QuantrelFs men and shot on his own 
threshold. Mr. Whalen had his stable burned. Dr. Lay’s 
last horse was taken — a calamity for a doctor. And so it 
went. When Gordon came down the next night, he found 
a household filled with apprehension for his safety and 
their own. They ate supper with locked doors and drawn 
shades. 

It was late when he got over to Keswick. Virginia had 
been to the front door a dozen times, listening for hoof- 
beats. At last they came, and, catching up a shawl, she 
sped down the walk into the night. She was waiting for 
him at the gate. 

“ Gordon ! ” she whispered. It might not be he, and 
even if it were, there was no telling these days who 
would be skulking around. 

Virginia ! ” 

It was the first time he had seen her since that night 
under the honeysuckle, and on that meeting nobody shall 
intrude. 

As they started up the walk, the door opened, and a 
shaft of light fell upon them. Virginia drew Gordon 
hastily into the shadow. Then the light was obscured 
and Miss Nannie stood in the doorway. By the time they 
got to the porch they were all there to greet him, and he 
was taken into the family room. 

2i0 


^‘TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR" 217 


If Gordon had had any haunting doubts about his re- 
ception, they were cast to the winds now. He almost 
wished, as the evening flew by, that they were not so fond 
of him, for he had not a word with Virginia alone. There 
was so much to talk about — the Tigerman raid, and all 
the exciting times of the last eight months— that it almost 
seemed as if the evening was gone before it v/as begun. 

As he left Virginia at the steps, Gordon whispered, in 
a voice inaudible to the rest, “ To-morrow we fll go down 
to the grape-vine tree. I Ve got to see you 1 Then h^ 
was gone. 

The next morning, as Gordon was taking a morning 
nap, he heard his father’s voice calling him. He sprang 
up. There was a note of alarm in that voice. 

‘‘ Gordon, did vou fasten the stable door last night ? ” 

Yes, sir. Why?” 

“ Your horse is gone ! ” 

'' My horse !” echoed Gordon, in consternation. 
‘‘ Gone ? ” He was throwing on his clothes and going 
down the steps as he spoke. 

It ’s gone ! When Wash went down this morning 
to take care of him, the door was open and the horse gone. 
It must have been taken, I think, — though I thought it 
was just possible that you had not fastened the door and 
he might have got loose and started home.” 

I am in hopes that is the way it was,” said Gordon. 

Still, I ’m sure I fastened the door. He might possibly 
have worked it loose.” 

‘‘ If it was a Kansas City horse it would go straight 
home.” 

It was a Kansas City horse. Damon was lame, and 
I had to get another one. It is rather lucky he was. By 
Jove! ” he said, shaking his head, as he took in the bear- 
ings of the case upon his safety, “ I ’d hate to think he 
was stolen 1 Was the saddle gone? ” 


2i8 


ORDER NO. 11 


I don't know," returned the doctor. Wash has just 
come in. I did n't think to ask." 

They went down to the stable themselves. There were 
fresh tracks around the lot, and the saddle was gone. 
That made it certain. 

'' Well," said Gordon, ruefully, as they told the tale 
at the house, '' I begin to wish I was safely out of this ! 
And I don’t just know how I 'm going to get out." 

Colonel Trevilian is going to-morrow to Kansas 
City," said the doctor. '' Perhaps—" 

'' Why could n't he go in the rockaway ? " cried Sallie. 
'' And Virginia could go along for protection." 

I wonder if the Colonel would dare to take me," Gor- 
don said. 

'' Of course he would," returned his father. 

And so the matter rested. It would n't be so bad, after 
all, Gordon thought. 

At the breakfast-table Sallie said : Gordon, did they 
tell you how Uncle Reuben saved the rockaway ? " 

'' No. They told me about Mammy and the meat." 

Well, Uncle Reuben was about as smart as Mammy. 
He took off a wheel and hid it, and nobody knew where 
it was, and old Tigerman could n't take it off on three 
wheels, and so they have it still." 

Good for Uncle Reuben ! I suppose, if it had n’t been 
for him, Mrs. Tigerman and the cubs would have been 
riding in it to-day." And the raid kept them busy during 
the meal. 

That morning, Virginia had to go down to Mrs. Tobe 
Taggart's on an errand. Mrs. Taggart was a weaver, and 
Mrs. Trevilian wanted a rag-carpet woven. She had had 
it in mind for some time to have one woven for Mammy’s 
house, but the raid had changed things. The dining- 
room carpet was presumably being put down in Kansas 
this morning, and the lady of the house and Mammy and 


-TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR 


219 


Miss Nannie were busy dyeing and cutting and sewing 
rags to replace it. The affairs of the household must go 
on in spite of war — sometimes because of it. 

Virginia was in something of a hurry this morning, 
having in mind the meeting at the grape-vine tree, and 
was rather reluctant to undertake the errand. She had, 
herself, an undutiful feeling that they had lost a good deal 
of time last night. 

Having finished her business conference with Mrs. 
Taggart, she started toward the blocks where she had left 
her horse. She looked around her curiously as she went 
down the steps into the unfloored passageway between 
the two rooms that comprised the house. She had heard 
of that passageway from Miss Nannie. 

It was open in front, and in it was stored everything 
that did not have a definite place elsewhere — saddles, 
riding-skirts, bags of grain, and sacks of wool, the grind- 
stone where it would be handy, and the big wheel just 
now not in use. From the joists hung strings of red pep- 
pers and dried okra, hanks of warp, and flapping garments 
waiting for their sacrifice. Great bags of carpet-rags in 
balls proclaimed the nature of Mrs. Taggart's calling. 

Virginia smiled to herself, recalling Miss Nannie's 
succinct account of the place the first time she ever saw 
it. - Sister Bettie ! " she had exclaimed hysterically and 
with cumulative emphasis, - I tell you there is everything 
on the face of God's earth in that passage but the mare 
and colt ! " 

Rene went out with her to the horse-blocks. It was 
no unusual thing to do, but the girl was so silent about it 
that it did not seem a simple act of politeness. She hardly 
seemed to notice what Virginia was saying about the 
chickens in the yard. She led the horse up to the blocks, 
and, as Virginia thanked her and was gathering up the 
reins, she stopped her with a gesture. 


220 


ORDER NO. 11 


There 's something I want to say to you,” she saidc 

Wait till maw goes in.” 

She stooped to tug at the girth. When she raised her 
head, Mrs, Taggart had gone into the house. 

'' What is it, Rene ? ” Virginia said in a low tone. 
She was startled at the girl's manner. 

‘‘ It 's about Gordon Lay,” she said. He 's home, I 
see.” 

Virginia started. She did not think that any living soul 
knew of Gordon's coming but his own family and hers. 
They had taken precautions to keep it even from the ne- 
groes. But Rene, with her hand on the pommel of the 
saddle, was looking straight into her face and asserting it 
as if she knew. 

What makes you think so ? ” she asked. 

'' I don't think so,” said Rene, bluntly. '' I know so. 
I saw him.” 

Where in the world did you see him?” asked Vir- 
ginia, thrown off her guard. 

Down at old man Chandler's last night, talkin' to 
Lois. It ’s about that I wanted to speak to you.” 

'' About his talking to Lois Chandler ! ” exclaimed Vir- 
ginia, with a flash of anger. 

‘‘ No,” said Rene; '' about his bein' down there. Let 
me tell you something ! This ain't no safe place for Gor- 
don Lay ! These woods are too full of bushwhackers ! ” 

I think you must have been mistaken about its being 
Gordon,” Virginia said incredulously. 

I ain't mistaken,” Rene replied quietly. I know 
Gordon Lay when I see him ! And I saw him last night.” 

But, Rene,” persisted Virginia (she felt sure she 
could trust the girl), ''he was at our house last night. 
You could n't have seen him at the Chandlers'.” 

*' I tell you I did ! ” said Rene, impatiently. It seemed 
to her that Virginia was more concerned trying to prove 


^‘TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR" 221 


that Gordon was not at the Chandlers’ than in finding out 
about his danger. '' I had been down past there huntin’ 
a cow. I saw ’em just as plain as I see you. It was n’t 
real dark. Gordon and Lois was standin’ out by the lilac 
bush, and he was talkin’ to her, and she was cryin’. I 
don’t know what she was cryin’ about. Maybe her paw 
was sick. But you tell him what I say. There ’s danger 
for him down here ! I know what I ’m talkin’ about 1 ” 

She glanced cautiously around her, and then came 
closer to Virginia, speaking in a low, tense tone. ‘‘There ’s 
men around here would as soon kill Gordon Lay as to 
stick a hawg. I ’ve heard ’em talk ! ” 

“ Re-e-nie ! ” called Mrs. Taggart from the passage- 
way, “ you ’ll take cold out thar ’thout any bonnet on.” 

“ Go on ! ” said Rene, releasing her hold of the pommel. 
‘‘ And you tell him what I say ! ” 

As she rode away, Virginia’s soul was in a tumult. 
What was the danger that threatened Gordon ? Who was 
it that was seeking his life? And then, her first thrill of 
fear over, came other questions no less agitating. . . . 
Was this thing true? Had Gordon gone to Lois Chand- 
ler before he had come to her? and that after all these 
months of separatfen ? ... It could n’t be ! She would 
not believe it! It was false! She gave her horse a cut 
with her whip and then reined him in suddenly. She did 
not want to get home too quickly. She must give herself 
time to think. . . . Rene must be mistaken —of course she 
was! And all the time she felt in her inmost soul — the 
one that tells us things and will not take them back, and 
cannot be silenced by argument— that Rene was not 
mistaken. She might mistake some other man, but not 
Gordon ! 

Virginia remembered his lateness in coming last night. 
And this was the reason! First of all, he had gone to 
Lois Chandler! Anger was getting the better of her. 


222 


ORDER NO. 11 


Then she reined herself in as suddenly as she had reined 
her horse. How absurd for her to feel that way 1 Of 
course, if Gordon had gone,— and she almost admitted 
now in her own mind that he had,— he undoubtedly 
had some good reason for doing so. Probably, as Rene 
had suggested, Mr. Chandler might be sick and Gordon 
had gone over with some message or something from his 
father. She felt the flimsiness of this explanation before 
it was formulated. Dr. Lay would never let Gordon take 
a risk like that. 

But maybe Dr. Lay was sick, too, and could n't go with 
the medicine, and Gordon had insisted upon taking it (as 
of course he would), and then had waited till nearly dark 
so as to lessen the danger. Then Lois might have come 
out to the door with him so as not to disturb her father, 
and have been anxious and nervous, and it would have 
been the most natural thing in the world for her to have 
cried a little when Gordon sympathized with her— as of 
course he would. She drew a breath of relief at this, feel- 
ing that she had been sensible enough at last to see a per- 
fectly natural, reasonable explanation of it all. 

But— 

Why had n't he said something about it last night when 
she asked him why he was so late? 

She reined her horse in to a walk then and tried to re- 
call exactly what Rene had said about it all. It had n't 
seemed strange to Rene that he was down at the Chand- 
lers'. Perhaps she had seen him there before. What Rene 
had thought of was Gordon's danger. 

At that she quickened her hocse's pace. She was be- 
ginning to think of this herself. Gordon might even now 
be down at the grape-vine tree— and the woods full of 
bushwhackers ! She would think no more of this silly 
thing, she said, with her lips set firmly together. Of all 
things in the world a jealous, suspicious woman was the 


-TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR 


223 


worst ! He had probably forgotten to say anything about 
it last night,-— and no wonder, with so many tilings to talk 
about and think of. Anyway, she knew it was all right, 
for Gordon was all right! Now! And her lips were 
firmer than before. 

When she got to the house, they told her that Gordon 
had been there and had gone down to the grape-vine tree. 
Virginia could hardly deliver Mrs. Taggart's message in 
her haste to be gone. There was no telling what might 
happen to him down there in the woods. 

But when she reached the old trysting-place, and he 
came to meet her with outstretched arms and folded her 
to his heart, she forgot Rene's warning and all else in the 
joy of being with him again. They had been separated 
so long, and the months had been such weary ones ! 

When she remembered her fears and told him of them, 
he drew her to him and kissed her and smiled down into 
her eyes, and said he would rather risk the bushwhackers 
than the family. He could n't have a word with her there. 
They would make sure of this morning, anyway. 

And listening to his tender words, she was beguiled out 
of her other fears, too, and felt ashamed as she recalled 
them. With her hand in his and looking up into the hon- 
est eyes that had never turned away from hers in all these 
years, those fears seemed base and ignoble. 

As they sat there talking the hours away, lost to danger 
and the world, they heard a sudden crackling sound be- 
hind them, as of a cautious step. Virginia sat upright, 
and Gordon grasped his revolver and leveled it in the di- 
rection of the sound. It was a moment of suspense, but 
following the step came another, and then a grunt, and a 
strolling pig stepped into view. The laugh that rang out 
startled him as much as be had startled them, and he stood 
not on the order of his gcring. 

But the incident, trivial as it was, brought to Virginia's 


224 


ORDER NO. 11 


mind a fresh remembrance of Rene’s warning, and she 
would not stay longer. 

When they reached the house, there was a fire in the 
parlor and the sofa drawn up before it. 

Gordon,” Miss Nannie said regretfully, '' we will 
have to leave you to Virginia this morning. Sister Bet- 
tie and I are busy with our dyeing. You won’t be dis- 
turbed. I have locked the front door, and drawn down 
the blinds if anybody should be prying around. Virginia, 
you treat Gordon Vv^ell. He is the only decent Federal I 
know of.” And with this parting shot she was gone. 

The memory of that day stayed long with Gordon Lay. 
He carried it with him to Southern battle-fields ; he 
thought fondly of it as he sat beside the smoldering 
camp-fire ; he dreamed of it in his lonely midnight hours ; 
he lived it over in a bewildered way years afterward, re- 
calling every word, every look, every motion of the wo- 
man he loved, and trying vainly to recall his own. 

At dinner it was Mammy that waited on the table. 
Mammy could be trusted with any secret, and it was well 
to be on the safe side. 

Colonel Trevilian had been going around the neigh- 
borhood that day, looking after claims that were to be 
presented to the commanding officer at Kansas City to- 
morrow. Gordon was easily persuaded to stay to supper, 
that he might see him. Again and again through that 
day Virginia thought of what Rene had told her; again 
and again it was on her lips to ask him frankly what it 
meant. And each time she would think : I will not ! It 
will seem as if I doubt him. I will not bring up anything 
— anything— to mar this day ! ” 

Before he left they had arranged for the trip in the 
morning. It was raining now, and the probabilities were 
that the day would be bad ; but it would be ail the better. 
Colonel Trevilian said, for their plans. They would be 



- . . 






. /*’■ 


■*>»•• 


“They had been separated so long” 












-TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR" 


225 


less likely to meet anybody on the road ; and, besides, that 
would be a good reason for putting the curtains down. 

“ I will have Reuben drive,’^ he said, and I will sit in 
front with him. Together, we will make a pretty good 
screen. On the back seat, Gordon, and with the curtains 
down, you will be pretty well protected from view.'' 

Gordon thought, with grateful heart, of that long ride 
with Virginia beside him. It would take nearly all day. 
He had resisted the maddening desire to stay with her 
through the evening, remembering his mother. And so, 
buoyed up by the thought of the morrow, he said good-by. 

When Virginia Trevilian knelt that night by her white 
bed and lifted up her virgin prayer, this was the burden 
of it : 

O God! keep him — keep him — keep him! . . . and 
make me worthy of him ! . . . He is true ! I know it ! " 


CHAPTER XXV 


A DARK night’s RIDE 

• r^HAT night, while Gordon lay on his bed, dreaming 
JL waking dreams of another day of bliss, and Vir- 
ginia Trevilian was sending up fervent prayers for his 
safety, a strange company was gathering in Tobe Tag- 
gart’s ‘‘ big room,”— which, by the way, was no larger 
than the rest of the rooms in the modest log house, but 
was so designated because it was the state apartment, re- 
served for guests. In that hospitable section even the 
lowliest home had its place for guests. Many other things 
were lacking, but never this. 

On the south side of the passageway which had so ex- 
cited Miss Nannie’s mirth was the family room, with the 
children in the loft. On the north side was the ‘‘big 
room,” its two high, rounded beds suggesting the pluck- 
ing of generations of geese, and gorgeous just now in 
'' rising sun ” quilts and diminutive pillows edged with 
crocheted lace. At the windows were paper shades, with 
gay ladies and gentlemen on them,— and to-night the 
shades were closely drawn. 

Above this room was Rene’s bedchamber in the roof, 
reached by a ladder. One looking at the house from the 
front would never have guessed that there was a second 
story, but ks presence was attested by a small window in 
each gable. There were no windows below them, the 
gable-ends of that house being mainly occupied in taking 
care of the immense fireplaces and the scarcely less im- 
mense outside stone chimneys that led therefrom. 

226 


A DARK NIGHTS RIDE 227 

Rene and her young sister had, by invitation, ascended 
their ladder early, so as to be out of the way of the guests. 

They ’ll be gone before you want to get up,” Mr. 
Taggart had said when she had complained of this appar- 
ent caging of herself and Lizy Ann. There was a note 
of significance in his words that did not escape Rene’s 
attention, but she was not much accustomed to ques- 
tioning her father, and lighted her candle with no more 
words. 

Lizy Ann’s breathing was giving evidence of sleep 
when the men entered the room below. A considerable 
time had elapsed — long enough, in fact, for Rene to take 
out the lower sash and hang an old quilt in front of the 
window after the child was asleep. She could hardly 
have told why she did it, but that something was on foot 
she knew,— she had seen the men talking around the 
wood-pile, — and she wanted an exit. 

She had let down the trap-door, which gave the two 
rooms a decent appearance of privacy, but there was a big 
crack in the door, widening at one end, and a knot-hole. 
Rene’s eye was over this hole. 

There were three of the men besides her father, all 
heavily armed with revolvers, though they carried neither 
guns nor sabers. One had a bowie-knife in his belt. 
They were shaggy and ill-kempt, and had the look of men 
who were hunted and hunting, for they kept their re- 
volvers close at hand and drew them sometimes at an un- 
expected noise. Once, when a rose-bush scraped against 
the window-pane, every man cocked his pistol and stood 
ready, looking a little sheepish when the cause of the 
noise was ascertained. 

Rene, from her point of observation above, surveyed 
this company with interest. She knew these men. One 
of them was Hank Menafee, who had turned comers so 
furiously at the barbecue —that was his way of doing 


228 


ORDER NO. 11 


things. Hank had just come,— he had not been with 
them when she had seen them at the wood-pile. 

Jeff 'lows we M better not all go to sleep at one time," 
suggested Hank Menafee when they began to lounge on 
the beds. 

“ Shucks ! " responded Mr. Taggart, contemptuously. 

Ole Tige is unchained, and I reckon he 's got better 
years than ary one of you—" 

Yes, and he nose more," added Dick Renfrew, who 
was young. 

Oh, shut up, Dick ! This ain't no time for puns." 

I reckon Dick would pun— or try to— ef it was the 
jedgment day," said Mr. Taggart. I 've known men 
killed for less than a pun like that one. But people that 
pun jes' natchelly has to get 'em in, good or bad." 

I reckon you 'll see one killed to-night for less," an- 
swered the one called Dick. '' I don't quite stomach that 
job, myself." 

The man that had said nothing turned sharply upon 
him. “ Well, stay at home, then," he said gruffly. '' We 
don't want no backin' out." 

Shucks ! " said Tobe Taggart, soothingly ; '' nobody 
ever knowed of Dick Renfrew's backin' out of anything. 
He 's game. Ain't you, Dick ? " 

I ain't a-backin' out," said Dick, and Jeff knows it, 
but I tell you I don't like this thing of killin' fur nothin'." 

Nothin' ! You call it nothin' for a man's house to be 
burnt over his head, and his stock run off, and — " 

Well, he ain’t done it ! " 

^^His side done it!" 

'' Look here, boys," remarked Tobe, authoritatively, 

quit yo' quarrelin' and go to sleep ! Ef we get off at two 
oYlock-" 

The girl at the knot-hole, with senses strained to the 
iitoost, smarted. Wei Was he in it, too? 


A DARK NIGHTS RIDE 


229 


The gruff man looked apprehensively up at the trap- 
door. The eye was not there now, but an ear was pressed 
close to the knot-hole. 

'' Who 's up thar ? ’’ he asked suspiciously. 

'' Nobody but my two gals,’’ returned Tobe Taggart, 
with warmth. “ Ef you are so all-fired skeery, Jeff Dicus, 
maybe you ’d better go somewheres else for your meetin’- 
place! There ain’t no spies around here. I can tell you 
that!” 

It was the gruff man’s turn now to pla)^ pacificator, and 
when this was done to the satisfaction of all Tobe with- 
drew. 

There was not much said after he was gone, but the 
girl who was playing eavesdropper was quick-witted, and 
she knew the gang. A man was to be killed. That much 
was sure. And killed for nothing,— Dick had said for 
revenge. That meant he was on the Union side. 

Who was the man? She could only conjecture. 

She was getting weary of her cramped position and 
the small returns it was bringing her, when Dick spoke 
again. 

“ Say, Jeff, you can shoot the boy if you want to. He ’s 
fightin’ on the other side. But derned if I ’ll see the old 
doctor harmed ! He took me through a spell of pneumony 
last winter.” 

Rene sat up. 

It was Gordon Lay ! 

She crept into bed then, and lay with wide-open eyes 
staring up at the roof. And her father was in it, too 1 

As she lay there, her mind alert and active as her senses 
had been when she was on the trap-door, a fierce anger 
surged within her. They should n’t do this thing ! What 
right had they to take Gordon Lay’s life ? He had n’t 
harmed them. No, nor would he, even if he had th^ 
chance ! 


230 


ORDER NO. 11 


She raised herself cautiously on one elbow then and 
listened. She could hear the heavy breathing of the three 
men. They had learned to catch sleep when they could. 
There was never any telling when it would be over. 

She sat at the side of the bed in the darkness, thinking 
out a plan. She must perfect every detail before she made 
a move. She could n’t light the candle. Where were her 
shoes ? She felt along stealthily for them. Ah ! here they 
were. She put them inside the waist of her calico dress. 
Fortunately, she had not removed her clothes. 

She reached for a shawl that lay across the bed. Why 
had n’t she pulled up the ladder ! A sheet would not be 
long enough to reach the ground after it was tied se- 
curely. She had jumped from greater heights, but she 
knew the splash on the wet ground beneath would betray 
her. 

She had never stirred from her place. It was her mind 
only that was groping around the loft for something that 
would let her down. That was all she cared for,— only 
to get out and on her mare. Kit! It was raining hard, 
the night was starless and dark, save for an occasional 
flash of lightning, but she cared not for that. If she could 
only get down! 

Her mind traveled around the loft, taking in the things 
stowed away under the edge of the roof. It traveled 
slowly, for there were many obstructions. Finally, it 
struck— a thrill passed through her— she would never say 
again there was n’t any such thing as Providence, as she 
had said the other day to Grandma Tolies— it struck the 
old bed-cord that had been replaced by a new one. 

She found it definitely with her brain before she 
moved. Then she went noiselessly across the room to 
where it was. Her hand closed upon it exactly where she 
thought it would be. She had even calculated the dis- 
tance. The human mind has room to stow away a good 


A DARK NIGHTS RIDE 231 

deal of rubbish and find it again, if one will only give 
thought sufficiently concentrated to the matter. 

She unrolled it, matched ends, and tied knots a foot and 
a half apart all the way down. Then she fastened it to 
the bed-post and made her way to the window, thanking 
God with a fervor new to her— for Rene was not very 
religious— that she had taken out the window. They 
would certainly have heard her if she had had to do that 
now. 

In two minutes she had gone down that rope like a cat, 
stopping near the bottom to say softly, “Tige! Tige!’’ 
The dog licked her hand. In two minutes more she was 
saying soothing things to Kit, who whinnied low. The 
saddle was in the passageway, but Rene was not depen- 
dent upon saddles. She found a bridle by feeling for it 
—and was off. 

It was three good miles to Dr. Lay’s over summer 
roads. They were doubled in March, when each step was 
as far down as forward. She went slowly at first, 
startled, every time Kit’s foot came out of the mud, for 
fear the sound would be heard ; faster when the distance 
grew; and then at a mad gallop when she struck the 
prairie road. 

She was barebacked and astride. A bonnet was not 
within reach, and she had tied on an old hat of her father’s 
that her hand chanced to touch. The storm that had been 
threatening all evening was upon them, but she was glad 
of it. Nobody else would be likely to be out. The light- 
ning flashes showed her that Kit knew the road. 

The creek was up. There had been a thaw that had set 
all the brooklets running, and the rain had been steady 
for hours. She was not quite sure of the ford, but Kit 
would know. She gathered up her skirts, spoke sooth- 
ingly to the mare, and plunged in. 

And Kit missed the ford! 


232 


ORDER NO. 11 


There was an agonizing five minutes for Rene Tag- 
gart then. The mare, finding her footing gone, plunged, 
shorted, and began to swim. Rene dug her heels into 
Kit's sides, and clung to her neck with the grip of de- 
spair. The current took them down the stream, but the 
brave animal's feet touched a bank at last, and up she 
plunged. 

After that it was easy. There were no more streams to 
cross. It was dark at Dr. Lay's when the girl stopped be- 
fore the door and sent out a ringing “ Hello ! " 

It was the ordinary call at a doctor's ^ouse, and it was 
a woman's voice, but Mrs. Lay, not the doctor, answ'ered 
it from the window. They took no unnecessary chances 
in those days. 

Who is it?" 

It 's me. Rene Taggart." 

'' Oh ! Did you want the doctor, Rene ? Is anybody 
sick?" 

^‘No'm. But-" 

Get off and come in, child. I 'll be down in a minute." 

When she got in they were all there, — even Sallie, shiv- 
ering over the balusters. 

Gordon took her by the hand. What is it, Rene ? " 

‘‘ They are after you," she said simply. I came to 
tell you." 

After me! Who?" 

The men. Quantrell's men." 

What have I done ? " 

'' Nothing. They are going to kill you for what Jen- 
nison 's done, I reckon." 

She told of the plot she had heard, leaving out her 
father and Hank Menafee, and, indeed, giving no names. 
They were Quantrell's men. That was all she would say. 
The circumstantial exactness of her report left them no 
reason to doubt its accuracy. 


A DARK NIGHTS RIDE 


233 


“ I am sure I don’t know what I can do,” said Gordom 
Every horse on the place has been taken— mine with 
them. Fortunately, they did not know I was here, or 
they would have got me then.” 

“ Maybe you could get one from Colonel Trevilian,” 
called Sallie from the stairs. 

You have n’t got time for that,” cried Rene. I tell 
you they ’ll be here before you get off, if you don’t hurry. 
Take Kit.” 

‘‘Your horse? What will you do?” 

“ Oh, I ’ll get home some way. Go on ! Take Kit and 
go ! When you get to Kansas City turn her loose. She ’ll 
come back. Oh, hurry ! hurry ! ” 

“ Suppose somebody should take her up ? ” 

“ If anybody can catch her they are welcome to 1 ” she 
said proudly. 

“ Rene, if your father finds out that you have done this 
what will he do? ” 

“ I don’t know ! ” Her lips grew white, but her eyes 
blazed. “ I don’t care ! Take Kit and go 1 ” 

“ I ’ll take you home first,” he said. “ It ’s a good long 
time till two o’clock.” 

“ If you ’ll get me across the creek,” she said, the hor- 
ror of that crossing stiffening her tongue, I won’t mind 
the rest. I know a short cut.” 

Good-bys were said quickly in those days. It was a 
straining embrace and a “ God bless you ! ” and he was 
gone. 

She rode behind him, her arms around his waist. 

“ Hold tight, Rene,” he said. “ There ’s no time to 
lose.” 

It recalled Virginia and their ride after her girth broke. 
It was what he had said to her. He might never see her 
again ! 

They crossed the creek in safety. He took her to the 


234 


ORDER NO. 11 


pasture fence. Then she slipped down from her seat, and 
he stood beside her. He threw the bridle over his arm 
and took her hands. 

'' Rene, you have saved my life ! God bless you ! 

He held her cheeks between his hands — her cold, wet 
cheeks, — and kissed her on the lips. Then he was gone. 

Rene Taggart walked home in a dream. She could 
feel the touch of his lips yet. It was raining, but she did 
not know it. She stepped into puddles, and the water 
gurgled in her shoes, but she did not feel it. She touched 
her lips once with the tips of her fingers to see if they 
were the same. 

The next morning, Mrs. Taggart went early to Rene’s 
room. The bed-cord, with all its knots untied, was rolled 
up and tucked away under the roof. The wet quilt was 
under the bed. Rene’s dress hung before the window. 

Did you hear anybody prowlin’ around here last 
night?” Mrs. Taggart stood beside her daughter’s bed. 

“ No!m.” Rene’s heart was beating like a trip-hammer. 

Well, Kit ’s missin’ this mornin’. Must ’a’ got loose, 
I reckon, in the night.” 

The ice was so thin that Rene did not dare to risk a 
step. 

Her mother turned from the bed to the garment hang- 
ing in front of the window. 

“ Why, Rene Taggart, what ’s the matter with your 
dress ? It ’s as wet as sop ! ” 

'' It is ? I left it in front of the window, and I reckon 
it got rained on. It was a powerful beatin’ rain.” 

Mrs. Taggart looked at her sharply. She was putting 
two and two together. 

‘‘ Humph ! ” she said didactically to her offspring. 

Don’t never be a bigger fool than you have to, Rene ! ” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


DAVID— 

R ENE’S good mare saved the day for Gordon Lay. 

. Within twenty-four hours he was on his way 
South with his regiment to join Grant, and in much less 
time Kit was whinnying at Tobe Taggart’s ramshackle 
barn. 

The Trevilians heard the whole story from Sallie, who 
came over before breakfast to tell it— Rene’s midnight 
ride and Gordon’s escape— the terror of that waiting, and 
the coming of the men at last — of their rage at finding 
Gordon gone, and how they had searched every cranny 
of the house for him, and at last gone oif threatening 
vengeance upon the whole family because he could n’t be 
found. I actually believe they would have killed LTncle 
Lay,” she concluded, if it had n’t been for Dick Ren- 
frew^ ! ” 

It was a thrilling tale as Sallie told it, and she had a 
breathless audience. In the chorus of rejoicings raised at 
Gordon’s escape, there was just one minor chord — and 
that was sounding so deep in a girl’s heart that it was not 
heard— the rockaway trip would not now be necessary! 
And straightway Virginia began to think of the many, 
many, many things she had meant to talk about with 
Gordon that day. Among them was Rene’s warning of 
the day before. She had made up her mind to tell him 
that in a casual way, and then if he chose to explain he 
could do so; if not — well, he would know that she knew 
about it. Now— that opportunity was gone. 

235 


236 


ORDER NO. 11 


The day was a long one to Virginia Trevilian. In the 
afternoon, she went down to Tobe Taggart’s, making the 
carpet an excuse. She hoped to have a word with Rene 
again at the blocks. 

But when she got there, poor Rene was in bed in the 
family room with a cold and a high fever. There seemed 
no chance of private talk at all, and Virginia was feeling 
desperately disappointed; but when Mrs. Taggart stepped 
into the passageway for the steelyards, Rene whispered: 
“ Kit ’s back.” She knew that Virginia had heard the 
story before this. 

Mrs. Taggart was back before she could answer, but a 
quick gleam of intelligence had passed between the two 
girls. Kit was furnishing the second chapter of the story. 

They had heard good news from Gordon and about him 
in the months and months that had passed since then. 
He was still with Grant. The Twenty-fifth Missouri had 
done valiant service at Pittsburg Landing. He had been 
made a lieutenant after that. Before Corinth it had shown 
its ability to work as well as fight for the flag. On 
the battle-field and in the fever-laden swamps, Gordon 
had borne a charmed life. He hoped they might soon be 
sent to Missouri, he wrote. There had been talk of the 
regiment’s being ordered back to recruit, but he did not 
know when. 

Only once had he been home since that night when he 
rode through the darkness and the storm on Rene’s horse, 
— danger on every side and certain death behind,— and 
then Virginia had not seen him. He came, as he thought, 
to his father’s death-bed. 

It was on Christmas morning, down in Mississippi, 
that the message had reached him which brought him 
home. Come at once,” it said, '' if you would see youf 
father alive.” 


DAVID— 


237 


He got a furlough and traveled night and day. When 
he got there the crisis was past, and, with his father on 
the road to recovery, he might have had a pleasant visit, 
after all, had it not been for his disappointment about Vir- 
ginia. She had gone down to Lexington to visit Lide 
Merriweather for a few weeks, and Dr. Lay’s attack had 
been so sudden and violent that the telegram, Gordon’s 
reply, and his coming had all taken place without her 
knowing a word of it. He wrote to her at once, and 
waited till the last minute ; but his furlough w’^as short and 
the distance long, and his return was imperative. When 
she reached home after receiving his delayed letter, he 
was on his way South,— and she turned the face of her 
soul to the wall. 

It seemed to her that she could not bear it ! Poor child ! 
she was taking first readings in a lesson we all learn by 
heart after a while — that we can bear a good many things 
in this world, simply because there is nothing else we 
can do. She took Gordon’s letter, which Sallie had 
brought her, and cried herself to sleep over its burden of 
love and disappointment. He could not tell, he said, when 
he would be back — not till the war was over, perhaps. 

'' Miss Figinia,” said Mammy, the next morning, as 
she made up the bed, '' don’t you think it was powerful 
resky in Marse Gordon to go walkin’ roun’ de woods 
whilst he was hyeah ? ” There were no secrets from 
Mammy. 

'' He did n’t,” said Virginia. Sallie says he hardly 
went out of the house. He did n’t even come over here.” 

“ He was down in de woods,” Mammy returned. 

Reuben seed ’im.” 

'' It could n’t have been Gordon,” insisted Virginia, in- 
credulously. Uncle Reuben probably mistook some- 
body else for him.” 

Humph I replied Mammy, with that implicit faith 


238 


ORDER NO. 11 


in her spouse’s statements that all good and unsophisti- 
cated wives have. I reckon Reuben knows Marse Gor- 
don, Miss Figinia ! . . . An’ de Chan’ler gyurl, too ! ” 

‘‘ The Chandler girl ! ” Virginia turned from her bu- 
reau to look at Mammy. 

'' Yaas’m. Him an’ her was standin’ down in de grove 
when Reuben seed ’em— dat grove dar in de doctor’s pas- 
ture. Reuben say she was cryin’, an’ look lak Marse 
Gordon was tryin’ to pacify ’er.” 

Virginia turned to the bureau,— taking pins out of the 
cushion, and sticking them in again. Lois Chandler cry- 
ing and Gordon trying to pacify her! . . . Sallie had 
told her that he had not been out of the house ; . . . evi- 
dently, this was some meeting that Sallie knew nothing 
about. 

Now, anybody else could ’a’ seed ’em jes’ same as 
Reuben,” pursued Mammy, in an expostulatory manner; 

an’ ef it had been one er dat Snai gang, he ’d ’a’ been 
gone up de spout! Yaas’m, he would so! ” 

“ What was Lois crying about ? ” asked Virginia, ab- 
ruptly. 

I don’t know’m. Maybe it was ’bout her daddy. 
He ’s been mighty bad off dis fall, ole man Chan’ler has. 
But I don’t know’m. Reuben could n’ hyeah nothin’ but 
jes’ one time. Den he say she kinder wrung her hands 
an’ cried out an’ say : ' It ’s too late now ! it ’s too late ! ’ 
He couldn’ hyeah what Marse Gordon say, — he talk so 
low, — but look lak he was tryin’ to pacify ’er. Reuben 
he ’low maybe she meant it was too late for her to be 
goin’ home by herself ; but I don’t reckon a gyurl would 
take on so ’bout dat ! Don’t seem so.” 

‘‘ She was probably talking to him about her father,” 
said Virginia, with rather ostentatious unconcern. Gor- 
don is very sympathetic when anybody is in trouble.” 

Yaas’m, he is so,— Marse Gordon is.” assented 


DAVID— 


239 

Mammy,— '' an' he 's foolhardy, too!" she added under 
her breath. 

At the dinner-table that day Virginia remarked inci- 
dentally : Mammy says old man Chandler has been quite 
poorly. Have you heard anything about it, mother ? " 
Yes. I was over at Dr. Lay's one day last week when 
Lois came over for medicine for him. She seemed quite 
unhappy about him. I really felt sorry for the child. It 
was the very day before Gordon went away." 

'' It was too bad, Virge, about your missing Gordon," 
said Miss Nannie. 

Virginia helped herself to a biscuit. It seemed as if a 
band that had been tightening around her heart had sud- 
denly been loosed. 

'' Yes," she said brightly,— so brightly that it had al- 
most the appearance of indifference, — '' it is too bad. But 
he 'll come again, I reckon." 

Miss Nannie looked at her a moment and then went 
on with her dinner. I don't more than half believe she 
does care," she thought. '' I was sure last night she did." 

That night Virginia wrote Gordon a long, long letter, 
full of love and regret. 

About a week after this. Mammy came to her one day 
with a folded paper in her hand. 

“ Miss Figinia," she said, '' hyeah 's a letter or somepn 
Reuben told me to give you. He went over to de doc- 
tor's dis mornin' to take 'em some sausage meat an' spare- 
ribs, an' he foun' dis hyeah paper down dar in de grove, 
whar Marse Gordon an' dat Chan'ler gyurl was talkin' 
dat day. Reuben he 'low maybe it 's somepn dat 'll git 
Marse Gordon in trouble ef it falls in de wrong hands,— 
some war paper or somepn,— an' he say : ‘ Dilsey, you take 
dat to Miss Figinia.' So hyeah it is." 

Virginia took the paper and unfolded it, feeling quite 


240 ORDER NO. 11 

justified in doing so. It seemed a sort of emergency of 
war. 

As she read it the blood faded from her cheeks, though 
her heart was pumping hard. It was a note from Gordon 
to Lois Chandler. It had been pulled from her pocket, 
probably, with her handkerchief, and left unnoticed on 
the ground. It said : 

'' Dear Lois : 

I must see you once more. And yet I have been 
warned not to go down to your house again. Can^t you 
make some excuse to come up to my father's this evening, 
just before night? Then I can see you down in the grove. 

'' Gordon." 

Mammy had been watching Virginia with alarm — 
startled at the whiteness of her face. 

Is it all right, honey ? " she asked anxiously. 

Would it 'a' got him into trouble ef it had n't fell into yo^ 
hands? " 

Yes," said Virginia, with an ironical curtness that 
was lost upon her auditor ; but it has fallen into just the 
right hands." 

She slipped the note into her bosom— not because she 
wanted it there, but because she did not wish anybody to 
see it. Then, cautioning Mammy to say nothing about it 
to anybody, she went to her own room. She took the note 
out and spread it open before her. A fierce anger pos- 
sessed her. Her color had come back now, and her lips 
were tight, a sure sign with Virginia that a conflict was 
on. “ He must see her." ... It was urgent, she thought 
scornfully, — most urgent !...'' Once more." . . . That 
implied that he had seen her before. . . . This was only 
one of many times, perhaps, that they had met in the 
woods. . . . Perhaps they had even met sometimes at the 


DAVID — 


241 


grape-vine tree!— and her lips were tighter than ever 
then. She had spent hours of these autumn days down 
there, dreaming of him. . . . ^' Some excuse to come.’’ 
. . . He had even concocted the plan— Lois could n’t be 
trusted, apparently, to think up as simple a thing as that ! 
Then her tumultuous thoughts went back to what Uncle 
Reuben had heard : It is too late now 1 it is too late 1 ” 
What did she mean? And Virginia’s heart beat fast. 

She was not long in this mood. When her anger had 
spent itself gentler thoughts came, and more trustful 
ones, if not more reasonable. Why should she believe evil 
of Gordon, she asked herself. Had she ever known him 
to be untrue before? Then she stopped, struck with the 
word she had used. Before? did she say before? That 
sounded as if she thought him so now,— and she certainly 
did not. How could she when she had not even given him 
a chance to explain! Probably everything that seemed 
strange and inexplicable about it all would be made as 
plain as day when once she could see him and tell him all 
about it. Why, there were a hundred ways of explaining 
things that people never thought of at first! Somebody 
might have written that note and left it where it would be 
picked up— just to tease her or to try her— she had read 
of such things in stories. She got the note out then and 
looked at it. . . . It was certainly Gordon’s writing. 

She had determined, in that first wild burst of anger, to 
send the note to him and demand an explanation. In her 
softened mood she was glad— so glad!— she had not 
done it. It was never wise, her mother had often told her, 
to do things rashly. Oh, no, it was much better to wait ! 
. . . But it was hard ! . . . Then she would go over that 
explanation. He would come after a while, and then they 
would sit together in the summer-house, and she would 
look into his eyes, and he would hold her hand and say, 
in his quiet way that always calmed her and made her 
16 


242 


ORDER NO. 11 


want to rest on his strength : Why, Virginia, dear, it 
was so — and so— and so — and it would all be as clear as 
day ; and then Gordon would gather her to his arms and 
say she was a foolish little girl to be so troubled about it, 
—but that it had seemed strange, perhaps,— she knew 
Gordon would acknowledge that when she had told him 
all. 

And then— for these communings with doubt and trust 
and herself were generally in the night-watches— she 
would take from under her pillow the picture he had had 
made for her in Kansas City, and lay her hot cheek on the 
cold, insensate glass and sob : It ’s all right, Gordon !— I 
know it 's all right,— but— it hurts me so ! 


CHAPTER XXVII 


—AND JONATHAN 


''HEY had seen more of Beverly than of Gordon. 



1 Beverly had been South with Price ; had fought on 
Bloody Hill the day that Lyon fell ; and had slipped 
his head into the noose more than once while coming back 
to recruit. He had the gift of persuasion, this laughter- 
loving boy, and many a man had followed his leader- 
ship into the army of the Lost Cause. 

Every trip brought him through Jackson County— now 
in North Missouri, now circling through the river coun- 
ties. They never knew when he was coming — hardly 
knew when he was gone. There were bird-calls from the 
pasture that Virginia came to listen for. Then somebody 
would mount guard while there was a hurried interview 
down in the woods or out in the orchard, or, sometimes, 
in between the corn-rows, where there were no telltale 
listeners. 

He did not come often to the house. There was too 
much risk ; and, then, he did not want to bring retribution 
on the family for his home-coming. But he came to think 
that he, too, bore a charmed life, and could come and go 
at will. He became expert at eluding pursuit, and felt a 
boyish elation in dangers risked and overcome. 

He was there just the week before Gordon came home 
on his furlough, staying longer that time than he had 
ever stayed before. It was the first time he had seemed 
reluctant to go back. War was a dreadful thing, after all, 
he told his mother,— he would be glad when it was over. 


244 


ORDER NO. 11 


She remembered, afterward, that during that visit he 
used to speak to her sometimes rather abruptly, after in- 
tervals of silence, saying, ‘‘ Mother,” as if he had some 
thing of moment to say, and then making some light re- 
mark that did not accord with the sober look on his face. 
It went to her heart to see him lose the buoyancy of youth 
and take on the seriousness of manhood. Of course it 
must come in time, but it seemed to be coming so fast. It 
was the shadow of war! she used to think, with a sad 
shake of the head. War was a blighting, withering 
thing 1 

She asked him one day if he ever heard from Gordon 
now. Yes, he said, he had had a letter from him a few 
weeks ago, — but he did not tell her what was in the letter 
nor offer to let her see it. Virginia was present when her 
mother asked the question, and it seemed to her that Bev- 
erly looked a little embarrassed when he spoke of Gor- 
don’s letter. She wondered why. 

They did not see him for a long time after this. The 
com was getting its first plowing when he came again. 
And this time it was for a flying trip. He and Ike Swam- 
scott had been north of the river recruiting— the Confed- 
eracy was in desperate need of men now. They were to 
start South in the morning, and in the meantime were to 
spend the night at Mr. Swamscott’s. The negroes were 
still at Keswick, and there seemed, on that account, more 
danger there than at the Swamscott place, where the ne- 
groes were gone. 

The Trevilians had gone down to see Beverly, taking 
Sallie Devereau with them, and when Colonel Trevilian 
said it was time to be getting toward home the girls de- 
cided to stay all night, at Mrs. Swamscott’s earnest in- 
vitation, seconded by Beverly and Ike. 

‘‘ Stay, Virge,” Beverly whispered in Virginia’s ear. 

There is something I want to tell you.” He looked so 


—AND JONATHAN 245 

strangely agitated that she wendered, with vague alarm, 
what it could be. 

The Trevilians said their good-bys outside, the Swam- 
scotts having sympathetically said theirs within, — Sallie 
casting in her lot with them. Indeed, it seemed probable 
that Sallie might be induced to do this for all time. Ike 
Swamscott was almost as handsome as Beverly in his 
gray uniform at the beginning of the war, and Sallie knew 
that the heart beating under it was twice as warm for her 
as Beverly’s had ever been or would ever be. So, as the 
uniform began to grow ragged, Sallie began to think more 
of the heart under it. It is hard for a girl to hold out 
against a love like his,— he had told her once that it had 
grown with his growth, and strengthened with his 
strength,”— and when he wrote to her, after one of her pe- 
riodical refusals, that he still loved her '' as tenderly, as 
infinitely, but as hopelessly as of old,” Sallie cried over 
the letter for a week and gave it up. That plea had 
touched her heart and made it his. All of which explains 
why Sallie was not now at the door with the Trevilians. 

When his father and mother were gone, Beverly stood 
with his arm close about Virginia, and she looked up into 
his face expectantly. There was something there she had 
never seen before. She shivered a little before it. He 
had been quiet all the evening,— little like the rollicking 
Beverly of old,— but now he held her passionately to his 
heart as if he feared that something might slip in between 
them that would hold them forever apart. 

“ What is it, brother ? ” she asked, an undefined fear 
knocking at her heart and demanding to come in — a fear 
that was so much worse because she did not know of 
what she was afraid. You have something to tell me? ” 

^^Yes,” he said, “I have something to tell you,” — he 
drew her cheek to his and patted it as one would a child’s, 
—•‘‘but, Virge,—‘ little Birgie,’— ” 


246 


ORDER NO. 11 


Her eyes filled. It was her baby name— the one his 
infant lips had given her. He used it always when he was 
tenderest of her. 

''—it will hurt you, dear,— will hurt you cruelly!’' 

She closed her eyes and bent her head to the blow. 
It was Gordon! She thought of the letter that Beverly 
had had from him. Beverly knew something that he had 
kept from her because he could not bear to hurt her, and, 
perhaps, too, from love of his friend. 

" I ought to have told you long ago,” he said, with stern 
self-accusation. " I ought not to have let it go on, keep- 
ing a cowardly silence. . . . You cannot blame me more 
than I blame myself ! ” 

She drew herself away from him with a fierce impa- 
tience. She had stood all she could. 

"What is it?” she cried passionately; — "tell me! I 
can stand anything — anything, anything — anything! — if 
I can only know ! ” 

He took both her hands and held them tight. " Vir- 
ginia, before I tell you, let me beg one thing. Don’t think 
too harshly of— poor Lois.” 

Lois ! It was ! 

" It is always the man,” he went on bitterly, " that is 
the most to—” 

" Beverly ! ” A quick, sharp whisper came from behind 
them, and a hand touched him. " Come in here ! quick ! ” 

They slipped through the half-opened door. It was Mr. 
Swamscott. " The house is surrounded. Go in the sit- 
ting-room and take a book or something. There they 
are now ! ” 

At this moment two Federal soldiers appeared at the 
front door, — another entered through the room they were 
vacating. When they met in the sitting-room they saw 
a family quietly reading, and two farm-hands lounging 
in the background— their chairs tilted back against the 


—AND JONATHAN 


247 


wall. There was no time for hiding and no chance for 
flight. Perhaps they did the very best thing, after all. 

The men belonged to Jennison’s command, and were 
in search of nothing more than shelter for the night. It 
was a harmless errand, apparently, but everybody in that 
room knew that if the identity of the farm-hands was dis- 
closed their lives would not be worth a picayune. In the 
face of this— perhaps because of it— the visitors were po- 
litely received and entertained. 

After the first frightful moments were past, they all 
noticed that Virginia was missing, but the peril was too 
imminent to risk the introduction of a new element of 
danger, such as a question might prove. 

The explanation of her absence was this : 

As the soldier had entered through the side door of 
the dining-room, Virginia had stepped back into an un- 
lighted corner, and so escaped notice. When he was 
safely in the other room, she slipped out, and across the 
porch on which she and Beverly had been standing. A 
moment later she was flying down the road. 

The Swamscott place was but half a mile from Mr. 
Whalen's. That distance was never traversed in much 
less time. If she could only get Mr. Whalen, the boys 
might yet be saved ! 

Every feeling of Virginia Trevilian's nature, as she sped 
along the dark road, was held subservient to the pressing 
need of saving Beverly; every conscious thought, as she 
galloped back behind Mr. Whalen, was of him ; and yet, 
through it all, reiterating in her subconsciousness was 
one word, and that a name— 

Lois ! 

If a popular vote had been taken on Grand Prairie as to 
the guardian angel of the community, it would certainly 
have been awarded to Mr. Whalen— the good neighbor 


248 


ORDER NO. 11 


who would have died for the Union, and who lived for his 
friends. Not till the final casting up of accounts will it 
ever be known how much he did toward the saving of life 
and property. Was a widow’s last cow taken by ruthless 
hands? Mr. Whalen was never too busy to attempt its 
rescue. Was a man’s life endangered? Mr. Whalen 
stood ready to swear him off. It must be admitted that 
his oath was a somewhat facile thing in those days, 
though men had been wont to say in times past that his 
word was as good as his bond, and his notes never went 
to protest. 

There were many dark pages in that four years’ record, 
but— 

'' Darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never see by day.” 

For those whose memories are good, those pages are 
illumined with kindly deeds and heroic acts that stand out 
like the exquisite coloring of an old-time missal wrought 
with painstaking care by some medieval saint. 

The neighborhood animosities of the earlier years of 
the war had passed away in the frightful community of 
interests and dangers of this later time. Then it was a 
struggle for opinion ; now, it was for life. In those days, 
men of differing political creeds shunned each other lest 
friendships be sacrificed ; in these, they sought each other’s 
homes for mutual safety. War makes strange bedfel- 
lows. In Jackson County, Union men and Southern men 
forsook their homes and lived together for a protection 
one to the other. All that a man hath will he give for 
his life.” 

Mr. Whalen had once taken the wife of one of Quan- 
trell’s lieutenants and conveyed her and her children to a 
place of safety in Illinois. She was his neighbor. She 
bad come to him in terror of her life, and he could not 


—AND JONATHAN 


249 


say her nay. It 's a poor widow woman that wants to 
get to her friends in the North/’ he said to the authorities, 
and they let them through. 

'' It was n’t so far from the truth, either,” he said in 
recounting the incident one day at Keswick. She ’ll be 
a widow before it ’s through ! ” 

Mr. Whalen,” said Mrs. Trevilian at that time, 
'' does n’t it hurt your conscience to tell an out-and-out 
story to save your friends ? ” 

'' Not a bit ! not a bit ! ” he replied cheerfully ; '' unless 
I get caught at it. Then it hurts me powerfully ! ” And 
he threw back his head and laughed heartily. 

A moment later he added seriously: ''No, Mrs. Tre- 
vilian, I feel no more compunctions of conscience in 
throwing Jennison’s men off the scent than any other 
hounds ! They are not fighting for their country ! They 
are here for what ’s in it. And that means plunder and 
pillage. If I can save a friend’s life or his property from 
these red-legged devils by an innocent lie that don’t hurt 
anybody, I ’m going to do it, and take my chances with 
the good Lord! I think he ’ll say, ' Well done, good and 
faithful.’ ” 

So when Mr. Whalen shuffled into the Swamscott sit- 
ting-room, speaking to the family in his homely every-day 
fashion, nodding carelessly to the two hands, and giving 
a cordial handshake and a " How are you, gentlemen ? ” 
to the soldiers, it will be seen why there was an instan- 
taneous feeling of relief. Mr. Whalen would get them 
out of it some way. 

They talked for an hour, the new visitor rather monopo- 
lizing the conversation because he was afraid to trust the 
family, but taking pains to draw the older one of the sol- 
diers into it. He related stories in which General Ewing 
and Colonel Jennison and Colonel Anthony’s names ap- 
peared familiarly— and his own incidentally. He was 


250 


ORDER NO. 11 


known throughout the country as a staunch Union man. 
The “ hands ’’ sat somewhat back in the shadow, and natu- 
rally took no active part. 

Soon after Mr. Whalen’s arrival, Virginia had come in 
from the back with a plate of apples, which she passed, as 
a daughter of the house would. Then she took a seat 
near one of the men. Sallie was seated by another. The 
soldiers were young, and the girls did their best. 

At last Mr. Whalen rose. Virginia thought : Hea- 
vens ! is he going without doing anything ! ” 

‘‘ Well, boys,” he said, I ’m goin’ at that corn in the 
morning. I want you there by daybreak. You are 
through with them, I believe you said, Mr. Swamscott ? ” 

At the door he turned. Come to think of it, I don’t 
know but you ’d better go over with me to-night— Hotel 
Swamscott seems pretty full just now— how is it, Mrs. 
Swamscott ? ” 

“ I reckon it would help me out a little,” she had pres- 
ence of mind to say. '' I have been wondering where I 
would put them all.” 

They got up and said good night as farm-hands would. 

An hour later they were on swift horses, headed south- 
ward. 

^‘Beverly, you fool!” said Mr. Whalen, impressively; 
don’t you let me see your face around here till the war ’s 
over ! Now go ! ” 

But Beverly’s face was seen again. He could not stay 
away. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


FIGHTINGS WITHOUT AND FEARS WITHIN 



IRGINIA TREVILIAN did not sleep much that 


V night. With the quieting of her active fears, the 
ones that had been held in check became rampant. What 
was it Beverly had had to tell her that he knew would 
hurt her?— ‘'hurt her cruelly'’ was what he said. . . . 
It was something about Lois Chandler — that much was 
certain. Oh, if he could only have finished! Now, it 
might be months before she would know, — for they sel- 
dom knew where Beverly was long enough to write to 


him. 


She went over every word he had said — every look on 
his face— every tender, caressing motion he had made, as 
if he would shield her from something that threatened 
her. . . . What was it ? What could it be that he blamed 
himself for not telling her before? 

And so the weary hours wore on. 

She woke Sallie once with her restlessness. 

“ What is it, Virge? " 

“ Nothing. But I can’t get to sleep.” 

“ Oh, don’t worry about them. They are safe. Have 
you said the multiplication-table ? ” 


“ Yes.” 


“ Well,” said Sallie, sleepily, “ try the sheep.” 

“I have; — but they won’t stop jumping.” 

“ Then,” intermittently, — Sallie was almost off now, 
— “ get up— and bathe your face— and say— and say — 
your prayers.” 


251 


252 


ORDER NO. 11 


And Virginia bathed her face and said her prayers. 
More than that, she prayed — prayed desperately. 

She told nothing at home of what Beverly had said to 
her. It was nobody’s concern but hers, she told herself, 
and hers it should remain. And as the victim of a mortal 
disease instinctively guards her secret and hides her pain, 
so Virginia hid hers and let it eat into her soul. 

If she had only told her mother! But she could not. 
She had never told her mother even of her love. How 
could she tell her now of the blasting of it? She could 
only think and think and think, and go to bed to dream of 
it, and rise up again to think. Such a conflict is hard on 
a girl. Virginia grew thin and hollow-eyed. 

In all her dwelling on this subject, she had never had 
a thought of anything worse than that Lois, by some 
charm of face or form, had won her lover away from her. 
That she should have been able to do this seemed so as- 
tounding, that she thought of it all in a kind of dazed be- 
wilderment. It seemed inexplicable that Gordon— of all 
men— should have fallen under a spell like that! Then 
she thought of what she had heard some ladies say once 
about how men often passed by girls of worth and lost 
their senses over mere physical beauty. . . . And Lois 
was the most perfectly beautiful girl she had ever .seen in 
her life — she would say that much for her. . . . But Gor- 
don! — a man like Gordon! What could he find in her to 
attract him, except her face? 

She felt strangely humiliated. It seemed monstrous to 
her that Lois Chandler— a girl for whom she had always 
felt a sort of condescending pity— should suddenly step to 
a place beside her as a rival ! . . . And when it was all 
over between herself and him, as of course it would be, 
would he ever marry Lois Chandler? She said it 

with scornful emphasis. There came to her just then the 
recollection of something Miss Nannie had told her years 


FIGHTING WITHOUT 


253 


ago about a conversation that she and Beverly had had 
once about this very thing. She had forgotten about it 
entirely— or thought she had. Sometimes things lie dor- 
mant in the mind a long time and then wake up as fresh 
as ever. 

But if Gordon had fallen into any such infatuation, it 
was probably more her fault than his. She had wondered, 
sometimes, if Lois were not a little vain — she was so 
pretty. Yes, probably— Then, all at once, Beverly’s 
words came to her with a new, a sinister force. It is 
always the man that is the most to—” To what? To 
blame? — was that what Beverly was going to say? And 
— to blame for what? 

The flitting of a base thought came to her. She 
clenched her hands and stared about her, feeling stunned. 

No! 

She put the very suggestion from her with a sick loath- 
ing. It seemed to her white innocence like an emanation 
from the pit. 

Girls were not as wise then in the ways of this wicked 
world as they are in these days, when they know more 
than the mothers that bore them. The searchlight of 
newspaper comment and feminine gossip had not then 
been turned upon virtue and its lamentable lack as a topic 
of absorbing interest. Virginia and Sallie and the rest 
had been shielded from much that blights by simple- 
hearted mothers who said, wisely or unwisely— take your 
choice between the terms : Whatsoever things are pure, 
my child, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
are of good report, . . . think on these things.” Per- 
haps they were wrong. The mother of us all gained in- 
sight when she ate of the Tree of Knowledge,— but it 
blasted Eden 1 

The suggestion that came to Virginia she spurned as 
dishonoring to Gordon and to herself. Beverly could 


254 


ORDER NO. 11 


never, never have meant that. Her cheeks flamed that 
she should have had such a thought. 

But a doubt injected into the mind at exactly the right 
moment is a very persistent thing. Virginia could not 
stamp the life out of this one, try as she might. She 
thought about it — telling herself it could not possibly be 
— until it grew to fill the universe. 

One day she and Miss Nannie were sitting together, 
with no one else around. Virginia sat facing the sun, 
which hung in the west, a great fiery disk, just above the 
horizon. She had one eye closed and her finger held 
close to the other — so close that it shut out all the glory 
of that western sky. 

Aunt Nan,’' she said, did you ever notice that you 
can let a little thing like the end of your finger come be- 
tween you and the sun till you can hardly believe that the 
sun is there ? ” 

Yes, often. You hold your finger so close to you that 
3^ou see things out of proportion.” 

“ But the sun is there, just the same, and everybody else 
can see it ; and you could see it — only you have this thing 
in front of you that shuts out everything else ! ” 

Her voice had an eagerness unusual in those days. 

Exactly,” said Miss Nannie. “ Things are not really 
changed by our way of looking at them, but they are 
changed for us.” 

So that sometimes we don’t really see them as they 
are?” 

'' Sometimes, 3^es.” 

She was silent a moment, and then she asked: 

Aunt Nan, do you suppose anything ever gets in front 
of our mental vision and comes so close to us and looks 
so black that it shuts out the light in the same way, so 
that we can’t see things as they are ? ” 

I don’t know what you are driving at, Virginia, but 


FIGHTING WITHOUT 


255 


nobody ought ever to see black things and call them white. 
Right is right and wrong is wrong, and you can't make 
anything else out of them, no matter how you look. The 
Bible says : ^ Woe unto them that call evil good and put 
darkness for light.' Does that answer your question?" 

'' No ! " said Virginia, sharply. '' It does n't answer it 
at all— not at all ! " 

And Miss Nannie was pretty sure, from the emphasis of 
her denial, that it did. 

It was not long after this that Mrs. Trevilian said to 
Miss Nannie : “ Nan, I believe there is something preying 
on Virginia's mind. Have you noticed how thin she is 
getting, and how little she eats ? " 

Oh, nonsense!" returned Miss Nannie, who had no- 
ticed it with growing concern, but did not wish to let her 
sister-in-law know it. '' It 's because there is nothing left 
that 's fit to eat. You can't expect anybody to have a rav- 
enous appetite for corn-bread and rye coffee. It 's your 
imagination." 

I 'm not very imaginative. Do you suppose it can 
have anything to do with Gordon ? I often wonder how 
much there is between them." 

'' I used to think there was a good deal," said Miss 
Nannie, '' or would be sometime. But here, lately, she 
seems so indifferent when he is spoken of that I hardly 
know what to think. He writes to her, just the same." 

Yes, but I don't think she writes to him as often. 
Sometimes I have thought that she really does care for 
him and is worrying because she feels that we would not 
approve of it because he is on the Union side. But, dear 
child!-" 

“ I don't believe it is that. It is more likely to be some 
little misunderstanding between them. Those things 
seem wonderfully big to a girl of Virginia's age, some- 
times." Miss Nannie gave the ghost of a sigh. She had 


256 


ORDER NO. 11 


been Virginia’s age herself once, and a little misunder- 
standing had arisen that had blotted out the sun for her. 
She thought of what Virginia had said the other day. 
She had been wondering about it ever since. Suppose 
you ask her about it, Sister Bettie. Don’t let it go on.” 

Mrs. Trevilian shook her head. 

No, Nan ; ‘ every heart knoweth its own bitterness, 
and a stranger ’—even a mother — ‘ intermeddleth not.’ ” 
She felt intuitively that this was not a matter for even her 
light touch. But her heart ached for the child. 

With the thought in her mind that she had suggested 
to Miss Nannie, she took occasion to speak much with her 
daughter about Gordon, dwelling upon his gentleness, his 
consideration for those of low estate, and his perfect 
truthfulness. Miss Lavinia used to say when there had 
been any trouble : ‘Wait till Gordon Lay comes. I will 
get the straight of it then.’ She always felt that Gordon 
was so perfectly trustworthy— so little governed by pas- 
sion of any kind. It was always principle with Gordon 
Lay, she used to say.” 

Virginia listened to it all without reply. It was as when 
the virtues of the dead are extolled to those that are be- 
reft. If only he were dead— instead of false — she might 
listen to it all and be comforted! 

One day, when they were alone, her mother spoke to 
her again with kindliest words of Gordon. She wanted 
to make it clear to Virginia that no differences of political 
opinion were as anything compared with nobleness of 
character. 

“ He is so careful of the reputation of others,” she said. 
“ That is a rare trait, my child, a chivalrous trait. You 
know how he always defended Lois Chandler when peo- 
ple called her bold after that foolish affair of the read- 
ings. He was talking about her the last time I saw him, 
— the time you missed seeing him,— and he spoke so beau- 


FIGHTING WITHOUT 


257 

tifully about her being motherless. It really quite touched 
me/’ 

Virginia rose with a look of dumb pain in her face that 
smote her mother’s heart. 

'' Virginia ! my child— what is it ? tell your mother, and 
let her help you ! ” 

'' It is nothing, mother ; nothing at all. I ’m only tired. 
I think I will lie down a while.” 

And Mrs. Trevilian felt herself shut out. 

Ah! how true it is — and how hard it is — that we who 
have borne the pangs of maternity, and would brave death 
if need be, for our children, may not always in the crises 
of life enter into their holy of holies 1 


CHAPTER XXIX 

THE PERFECT LOVE THAT CASTETH OUT FEAR 

AND yet it was through her mother that peace came to 
JTx. Virginia at last. 

Things had gone on this way for weeks. Letters came 
from Gordon, but they were not answered. She felt that 
she could not write. What could she say? The family 
always asked affectionately about him when the letters 
came—more so now than ever, it seemed to her. She had 
never known before how much they thought of him. 

One day Colonel Trevilian said to her (Mrs. Trevilian 
had been talking with him) : Virginia, there are few such 
young men as Gordon Lay. Of course, he and I do not 
think alike on political questions,— but such differences 
seem less important to me than they once did. I have 
come to feel that nothing counts much in the choice of a 
—a friend but honor and integrity. My daughter, if—’' 

He was going to say more, but the look on her face 
stopped him. 

They had all had a hand in it now but Miss Nannie, 
and Miss Nannie proposed to have. She did not intend 
to see Virginia’s life wrecked for want of a warning. I 
don’t know what old maids are for,” she said to herself 
grimly, if not for lighthouses to warn other people off 
the rocks ! ” 

So as they sat together one day she said abruptly : '' Vir- 
ginia, I never told you how I happened to be an old maid, 
did I?” 


2^8 


THE PERFECT LOVE 


259 

No,” said Virginia, with interest ; I have often won- 
dered, Aunt Nan.” 

'' Well, I ’m going to tell you,”— and she told the 
story that had been much in her thoughts since her con- 
versation with Mrs. Trevilian— of the misunderstanding 
and the angry words and the pride that would not give 
in on one side and the obstinacy that held out on the other 
—until finally there was a ring returned and letters asked 
for, and— the thing was over. 

'' It really is not much of a story, after all,” she 
said, to tell. But, Virge, it changed life for both of 
us!” 

Virginia’s eyes were brimming. It might not be much 
of a story, but it seemed the tragedy of life to her. 

'' Aunt Nan,” she asked when she could trust herself to 
speak, “ did— did the thing you heard about him affect his 
—character? ” 

Not at all,” said Miss Nannie ,* that would have made 
it very different. It was just a case of a girl’s pride and 
a man’s obstinacy — as most of them are.” 

She did not press the application. She had made up 
her mind to supply the leaven and let it do its own work. 
And as Virginia tossed on her pillow that night, she 
thought, “ But her case was so different 1 . . . Oh, if it 
was only pride 1 ” 

' They heard from Beverly occasionally down in Arkan- 
sas, but he never referred to the matter that he had begun 
to speak about that night. 

One evening Mrs. Trevilian and Miss Nannie sat sew- 
ing carpet-rags. It seemed imperative to have another 
carpet, for the recollection of the Wilton in the parlor 
had proved too much for Tigerman, and he had come back 
for it. The pier-glass felt lonely without it; and really, 
he argued, without the furniture that went with it, the 
Trevilians did not have as much use for it as he had. 


26 o 


ORDER NO. 11 


Which was true, in a way, for they had no house-parties 
now. 

At the last moment there was a pressing call from Mrs. 
Taggart for more rags, and they had dropped everything 
to supply the demand. Virginia had read to them a while 
as they worked, but she soon stopped, and sat with the 

Harper ’’ before her, and the page never turned. 

She could hardly have told of what she was thinking. 
To the sharp pain of a few weeks ago had succeeded a 
dull apathy. It seemed to her sometimes that there had 
never been a time when she had not had this gnawing 
pain. She was getting used to it, she said to herself a 
little drearily, as she had heard of women, married wo- 
men, learning to bear meekly things they could not rem- 
edy. She wondered if it were a kind of paralysis of the 
emotions, and if she would ever feel anything again very 
much. 

She finished a page and then discovered that she did 
not know one word of what she had read. She turned 
resolutely then to the beginning and started again. She 
would not give up to such dallying ! She had got half-way 
through the page, with somewhat better results, when her 
attention was arrested by Miss Nannie’s voice saying, 
with a bitterness new to it: 

'' No, I don’t ! I think God has forgotten there is such 
a place as Grand Prairie in His universe ! ” 

“ Don’t say that. Nan,” Mrs. Trevilian’s soft voice was 
protesting. 

'' Well, Sister Bettie, it ’s enough to make anybody 
think so! Here we are sewing carpet-rags to cover our 
bare floors, and that thief, Tigerman, and his gang sitting 
on our Wiltons and three-plies! We’ve served God all 
our lives; and sometimes, when I look around and see 
how the wicked prosper, I think we ’ve served Him for 
naught ! ” 


THE PERFECT LOVE 


261 


No, we have n’t ! We don’t serve God for Wilton 
carpets and mahogany sideboards. . . . That wicked 
thought of yours, Nan, is no new thing. Solomon knew 
of it and answered it thousands of years ago. And his 
answer is just as true to-day as it was then — ^ Though a 
sinner do evil an hundred times and his days be pro- 
longed, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them 
that fear God.’ ” 

Virginia was listening with an intentness that precluded 
the idea of emotional paralysis as the proper diagnosis of 
her case. There was something in Miss Nannie’s rebel- 
lious protest that found an answering chord in her own 
breast. 

“ Do you know why he said that. Nan ? ” her mother 
asked, a light shining in her eyes that irradiated her hum- 
ble occupation and seemed hardly of the earth. 

No,” said Miss Nannie, unconvinced and rebellious 
still ; “ but he would n’t have said it if he had lived in this 
country. I know that ! ” 

‘‘Yes, he would, Nan. The wise man had a firmer 
foundation for his faith than mere seeming. Appearances 
might all point to unbelief ; circumstances might be 
against him ; but he was resting upon something greater 
than circumstance and appearance.” 

Virginia was listening breathlessly now. She knew her 
mother was talking of spiritual things, but she was apply- 
ing it to her own gropings in the dark. 

“And why was it?” asked Miss Nannie. 

“ It was because he could say with Paul, ‘ I know in 
whom I have believed.’ ” 

There was silence then. Miss Nannie could not find it 
in her heart to answer those reverent words with either 
jest or scoff. And Virginia— 

Virginia sat motionless. Into the darkened chamber of 
her heart, where her secret was hidden away, there came a 


262 


ORDER NO. 11 


faint glimmer of light. She did not dare to stir, lest it 
should vanish and she be left in the blackness of darkness 
again. . . . '' He knew in whom he had believed.’' 

She shut her book softly and stepped into the hall. 
There she took a light shawl and threw it over her head 
and went out upon the porch, sitting down on the steps 
between the white pillars where he and she had so often 
sat. There was no moon, but it was a starlit night, and 
from all around came the fresh odors of growing things. 

Virginia’s soul was in a tumult. She did not perceive 
the budding of life ; she did not notice the steadfast stars ; 
only one thought was in her mind, but that was enough. 
. . . He knew in whom he had believed.” ... If this 
was ground for spiritual faith, was it not also ground for 
human faith— the trust of man in man? In the relief 
that came to her with the grasping of this plank amidst a 
sea of doubts, she did not stop to think that she was lean- 
ing on mortal man, — Paul, on the Infinite One. . . . Paul 
''knew in whom he had believed.” And did not she? 
Had not Gordon Lay’s life been an open book to her since 
she could remember? And had she ever seen in it any- 
thing that need be erased as unfit for a woman to look 
upon? . . . Why, — zvhy had she not thought of this be- 
fore ? She had been looking at all the suspicious circum- 
stances that had been thrown around him, and not at all 
at what she knew best of all— his own open life. That was 
what she should have looked at, she told herself sharply. 

Then remembrance came to her of the witness her fa- 
ther had borne to his good name— his integrity and his 
honor ; of the things her mother had spoken of to her— his 
truthfulness, his sincerity, his chivalrous care for the 
reputation of others,— she even forced herself to face what 
she had said about his plea for Lois, shrinking back a 
little and her breath coming hard, but holding steadily to 
her new point of view, as the sheet-anchor that would keep 


THE PERFECT LOVE 


263 


her from getting adrift again. Yes, doubtless it was this 
very trait that had led him to seek Lois out and try to 
do something for her — what, she did not know and did 
not need to know, but something kind, she was sure. 
It would be like him to try to help her if she was in 
trouble. 

Then a recollection of Beverly’s unfinished sentence al- 
most swept her new-fpund anchor away in a surging wave 
of doubt. She hardly dared to go over that again. . . . But 
she would ! She would probe this thing to the bottom 
now. She would test her faith by every one of those old 
doubts. And as she went over again that broken utter- 
ance of Beverly’s, a thought came to her that almost took 
her breath away. Beverly had never said one word about 
Gordon! It was she that had put that construction on 
his words 1 What if Beverly had never thought of such a 
thing at all ! She could have cried aloud for joy. 

How she had wronged him I How hard she had been ! 
She had not guarded his reputation as he had cared for 
poor Lois’s. She found her heart growing tender for the 
girl. She would go and see her and find out what her 
trouble was and whether she could not help her. . . . Oh, 
she had been hard — hard! He would never have con- 
demned anybody unheard like that! Aunt Nan had said 
a woe was pronounced on those who put darkness for 
light and called evil good, but she knew her Bible well 
enough to know that there was a woe, too, for those who 
called good, evil — and light, darkness. 

How blind she had been! What if circumstances had 
seemed against him? She had heard her father tell of a 
man he had known who was hanged— actually hanged! — 
on circumstantial evidence, and it had turned out after- 
ward, when it was too late, that he was innocent. She 
thanked God from the bottom of her heart that she had 
never made known her doubts to a living soul. And never 


264 


ORDER NO. 11 


would ! She had no doubts ! She would cast them to the 
winds and throw herself absolutely upon her trust in him. 

And lo! with that resolve her burden was loosed from 
her shoulders and fell away, and peace filled her soul. In 
that moment her heart was opened to all the sweet influ- 
ences of the night; — the budding life around her seemed 
to throb and pulsate with joy; the soft, south wind came 
to her with a message of love from him ; the stars — the 
same old stars they had watched together, Orion and the 
Pleiades — smiled down upon her just as they did then, — 
perharps even now he was looking up at them from the 
tented field and thinking of her. . . . And — yes, they 
were— the very same that Job, old Job, had looked up to 
when he fought his fight— who knows how long ago! 
. . . And in all these ages they had never swerved 1 
A kind of spiritual exaltation possessed her. She 
sprang up and stretched her arms out toward them, as 
if invoking their steadfastness. Her head was thrown 
back, her eyes shining. 

Gordon ! ’’ she cried in an impassioned whisper ; 

Gordon 1 though all the world should swear you false,” 
— her hands were clenched now, — I will believe you 
true 1 ” 


But alas! alas! when an act of the will is necessary to 
faith, the foundations are beginning to totter. 


CHAPTER XXX 


A FEARFUL SCHOOL AND AN APT SCHOLAR 

‘‘THRCINIA! here’s a letter for you.” 

V She took it from her father’s hands and went to 
the summer-house. It was from Gordon, and she liked to 
read his letters there. As she bent over it now, an expec- 
tant smile on her lips, she did not look much like the Vir- 
ginia of a few months ago. The roses had come back to 
her cheek and the gladness to her eyes. Mrs. Trevilian 
thought it was because her mind was relieved about their 
opposition, but Miss Nannie felt sure it was the leaven of 
her own little story, — neither guessing the truth. 

Her face was certainly full of sunshine now, for the 
letter said he was coming home. It might be a month or 
two yet, but— he was coming! he was coming! 

The pansies were sending up their sweet breath out- 
side— the pansies he had gathered for her the day before 
he started oif to Kentucky— how long ago it seemed!— 
and she had told him her deepest wish was to live where 
something would happen. Well, she had had her wish! 
she certainly lived where things happened now ! How 
silly girls were! she thought, feeling suddenly very old. 
He was coming— yes, but there were so many uncertain- 
ties in life. She had found that out. 

She stepped to the border to gather some pansies. She 
was peculiarly susceptible to odors, and pansies always 
took her back to that day. As she stooped over the fra- 
grant bed, a noise at the horse-blocks startled her. She 

265 


266 


ORDER NO. 11 


stepped back into the summer-house and peered through 
the vines. 

Two men on horseback were at the blocks. One of 
them looked as if he might have been wounded. She had 
never seen either of them, to her knowledge ; but when 
she looked at the older man (and he was young) one of 
those vague, intangible sensations of recognition came 
over her which make us feel sometimes that we have lived 
in a previous state of existence as cats, or rats, or some- 
thing. It was very absurd, but he made her think of the 
barbecue. 

The two men dismounted, one with difficulty and lean- 
ing on the arm of the other as he came up the walk. He 
sank to the steps as his companion raised the great 
knocker and gave a rat-a-tat-tat that resounded through 
the house. While he was waiting for his knock to be 
answered, the man turned and looked around him. Vir- 
ginia could see his face plainly without being herself seen. 
And again that strange sense of recognition swept over 
her, though she was sure she had never seen the man 
before. 

Then Mrs. Trevilian herself came to the door, and Vir- 
ginia heard him say without preliminaries, I want 
you to take this boy in and care for him. He needs 
nursing.” 

The mistress of Keswick looked down at the lad on the 
step, who was resting his head against the white column. 
He raised a smooth boyish face to hers, with innocent- 
looking blue eyes, cheeks flushed with fever, and lips that 
tried to smile and were too weak. 

He needs his mother,” Virginia heard her say. 

Bring him in.” 

She asked no questions and made no remonstrance. A 
request from an armed man in 1863 was a command, and 
this one spoke as if he were accustomed to being obeyed. 


AN APT SCHOLAR 267 

Perhaps her heart warmed a little to the boy, anyway, 
thinking of her own. 

The man raised the sick boy gently, set him on his feet, 
and together they guided him in. Virginia took this mo- 
ment to follow. But alm.ost before they were in, the man 
was out again, coming upon her face to face. He raised 
his hat, swept a swift glance around the prairie, and was 
gone. 

Virginia stood looking after him. “ I know now I Ve 
seen him,^' she thought, ''but where?’’ 

Mrs. Trevilian was accustomed to being nurse and doc- 
tor both for her family. Her experienced eye saw that 
this boy needed close care. 

" He is a very sick boy,” she told her husband. " I 
think I will sit with him myself to-night. I wish he was 
with his mother ! ” 

Before night he was muttering in delirium, and they 
sent for Dr. Lay. 

" Who is he.? ” the doctor asked. 

" I have n’t the least idea,” she said. 

" One of Quantrell’s men, do you think ? ” 

" I don’t know. Hardly, I should think,— such a child 
as he is. But I know this, Doctor, — unless you give him 
the right medicine and I give him the right nursing, he 
is going to die. So, whoever he is, we ’ve got to pull him 
through.” 

" I reckon you ’re right,” he said. 

She had lost herself for a moment toward midnight, 
when the sick boy spoke. She woke with a start. He 
was leaning on his elbow looking at her. 

" Ma ! ” he whispered hoarsely, " look at my back ! ” 

To humor him, she bent over him and made a feint at 
examination. 

" They raised great welts,” he muttered. Then he 
looked up at her with a flash of steel in his blue eyes. 


268 


ORDER NO. 11 


Don’t you cry, ma ! They ’ll never have a — chance — 
to—” 

The flash faded. He had dropped off to sleep. 

Mrs. Trevilian watched him curiously. Who was this 
boy and what had happened to him ? she wondered. Such 
a child to be armed! 

They had hidden his pistols as soon as he came. The 
jayhawkers were liable to come upon them at any mo- 
ment and arms would betray him. Otherwise, the boyish 
face would certainly disarm suspicion. 

But the jayhawkers did not come. And Mrs. Tre- 
vilian’s nursing won the day. 

The boy was sitting up one morning about two weeks 
later, clothed for the first time, and Virginia was sewing 
near him. He asked about his pistols. 

They are put safely away — ready for you when you 
go. Where did you get them? You certainly are not a 
soldier.” 

The boyish face flushed with pride. 

I am, though 1 I am one of Quantrell’s men.” 

You ? Why, you are just a boy 1 ” 

A boy’s bullet can do as much work as a man’s if 
it is aimed straight ! Besides, I ’ll be sixteen next Sep- 
tember.” 

Sixteen, even, is entirely too young to be in the army ; 
and you won’t be sixteen for months yet.” She spoke 
severely, from the superior age of twenty-one. What 
was your mother thinking of to let you go ? ” 

My mother could n’t help it. She was in prison, — 
she and my little sister— younger than I am— and my step- 
father. When she got out I was gone.” 

'' Where is your home ? ” 

‘‘ In Clay County, over across the river.” 

Well, as soon as you are able to travel, you go right 
back to your mother,” advised Virginia. The brush is 


AN APT SCHOLAR 269 

no place for a boy like you. You ought to be in school 
for two years yet.’’ 

I ’m not going back home. I ’m going to stick to 
Quantrell to the end. They ’ll never get a chance to beat 
me through the corn-rows again ! ” 

They had asked him no questions about himself, and 
he had volunteered no information. But to-day he was 
in a communicative mood, and Virginia had a girl’s curi- 
osity. 

Who beat you through the corn-rows ? ” 

“ The militia. They came to our house one day last 
spring, looking for Quantrell. He had been over on the 
north side of the river, and they thought ma and pa would 
know where he was, and they could make them tell. They 
came out to the corn-field where my stepfather and I 
were plowing. They took pa and strung him up three 
times by the neck to make him tell. When they got 
through he was nearly dead.” 

“ Did he tell?” 

No. He did n’t know. He would n’t have told if he 
had known.” 

“ Did they do anything to you ? ” 

The hot blood rose to the boy’s face. 

‘‘ They lashed me up and down the corn-rows, with a 
rope, till my back was in great welts ! Do you call that 
anything? Then they made me climb a mulberry tree, 
at the point of their bayonets, to see them string my step- 
father up ! ” 

Mrs. Trevilian would have stopped this recital, for her 
patient’s blood was coursing madly through his veins at 
the recollection of those indignities. 

'' Did they do anything to your mother ? ” 

'' They pointed their guns at her and threatened to 
shoot her if she did n’t tell where Quantrell was.” 

‘‘And did she?” 


270 


ORDER NO. 11 


Ma ! You donl know her ! She said : ‘ Dm like Ma- 
rion’s wife— what I know I ’ll die knowing ! ’ She ’s grit 
clear through, ma is ! . . . Well, they took pa oif, and when 
they got a little way off they fired their guns, and we 
thought they had killed him. They said they were going 
to. But they had n’t. They just did it to scare us. But 
they took him to prison, and arrested ma and my little 
sister and threw them into prison, and then— I went to 
Quantrell.” 

He was silent a moment, when he burst forth like the 
boy he was : 

I ’ll soon be able to shoot with the best of them. I ’m 
not going to stop till I can shoot as well as Quantrell.” 

And how well can he shoot ? ” 

Quantrell ? Oh, he pops ’em every time— a clean 
bullet-hole in the middle of the forehead— and that ’s the 
last of them.” 

''What!” Virginia was looking at him with staring 
eyes. Do you mean to tell me that that man is Quan- 
trell?” 

Quantrell ’s the man. Did n’t you ever hear the story 
of how he began it ? ” 

No. Tell it to me.” She was as full of excitement 
now as he had been a moment before. 

The boy leaned forward in his eagerness. Quantrell 
was his leader and hero, and the story was one to capti- 
vate the fancy and fire the imagination of a daredevil boy. 

Well, this is the way they told it to me,” he said, — 
'' Arch Clements and the rest of them. I never heard 
Quantrell say anything about it.” 

Virginia laid down her work to listen. 

Away back yonder in 1856, when Quantrell was a 
right young man, he and his brother started overland to 
California. They got as far as Kansas, near Lawrence, 
when a band of jayhawkers fell on them and killed his 


AN APT SCHOLAR 


271 


brother, and robbed them, and left Quant rell for dead. 
But he was n^t ! I reckon they ’ve wished a good many 
times since then that he had been ! 

'' Well, he came to after a while, but he could n't move, 
and he lay there two days and nights by the dead body 
of his brother, keeping away the coyotes and the buzzards. 
At the end of that time an old Indian found him and 
buried his brother, and took Quantrell home to his wig- 
wam, and nursed him back to life. The boys say those 
two days and nights made a demon of that man! You 
would n’t know it, though, to look at him. He ’s as mild- 
looking as a preacher.^’ 

Virginia thought of the young man she had seen at the 
barbecue, and what Gordon had told her afterward about 
the way he looked at Jim Baird. 

Who was it brought you here ? she demanded, with 
a sudden, fearful enlightenment. 

“ Quantrell.’' There was pride in his tone. I tell you, 
Quantrell don’t go back on his men 1 ” 

“ Go on with your story,” she said. 

There came to her, with a rush that was almost over- 
powering, the feeling she had had about this man’s some 
day coming into their lives. He was in their lives nov/ 
with a vengeance! If it should get out that they were 
nursing Quantrell’s men— she turned sick at the thought. 

Yes, sir, that night just made a demon of him. Pie 
did n’t seem to care to live for anything but revenge. 
While he was getting well in the old Indian’s wigwam he 
laid his plans. He made a vow that every man in that 
gang should die as his brother had died. And how do you 
suppose he made sure of them ? ” 

I don’t know. How ? ” asked Virginia, breathlessly. 
He joined that band of jayhawkers himself. They 
did n’t know him. They had left him for dead, you know ; 
and he had changed his name and everything like that. 


272 


ORDER NO. 11 


Then he got them to talk about those two men they had 
killed and how they had done it. And he listened, and 
bided his time. Well, one day a jayhawker in that band 
was found dead with a hole in the middle of his forehead. 
Nobody knew who did it. And Quantrell, or Hart as he 
was called then, did nl know any more than the rest. It 
was not long before there was another, and after a while 
another, and a few weeks afterward another— always 
with the one bullet that had gone home. 

After a while they got frightened and disbanded. It 
did n't make any difference. Quantrell had them spotted 
then, and the same shot followed them. The boys say 
that whenever he kills a man he ties a knot in a silk cord 
he carries. There were thirty-two of those men. They 
say there are twenty-three knots now. One of them was 
for a man killed over here in this county at a barbecue. 
Quantrell had tracked him here." 

I know," cried Virginia, shuddering. It was Jim 
Baird. I was there and heard the shot." 

'' Jim Baird— that 's the very man. They say there 
were two of these Bairds. They got scared and left Kan- 
sas— came over to Missouri and bought negroes, and 
tried to pass themselves off for Southern men. But 
Quantrell found him ! He 'll find the other one some 
day. Well, some time before they disbanded he planned 
with seven of these jayhawkers to go over to Missouri 
to old man Walker's and run off his negroes. He sent 
word to Walker to be ready for them, and Walker gath- 
ered in his neighbors; and when they got there — the jay- 
hawkers, I mean — Quantrell suddenly went over to the 
other side, and they killed the whole gang. That night 
seven knots were tied in the cord." 

Mercy ! is n't that awful ! " breathed Virginia. 

The boy's eyes had kindled with the recital, his cheeks 
were glowing, and his breath came fast. 


AN APT SCHOLAR 


273 

** ^ Awful ! ’ ’’ he exclaimed. I think it glorious ! 
He paid them back, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth ! 

He lay back in his chair then, exhausted. 

“ You Ve talked enough now,’' said Virginia, hastily. 
She had forgotten about his being sick. But there was 
one thing more she wanted to know. 

You have told me all about Quantrell,” she said, smil- 
ing, and about yourself except your name.” 

My name is Jesse James,” he said. 

Jesse James ! It has been heard many times since then, 
to the detriment of the State’s good name, but it was no 
more that day than John Smith. The bandit of later years 
was a beardless boy, fresh from the corn-field and the 
plow. He was taking his first lessons in crime. 

When Colonel Trevilian heard the story Virginia had to 
tell he looked grave. 

I am afraid this will bring trouble on us,” he said. 
‘‘ If it becomes known that we have harbored a man whom 
Quantrell himself brought here, there is no telling what 
it will lead to. . . . No, I know we did n’t know it, and 
could n’t have helped it if we had known it ; but — my 
dear, do you think the negroes generally know about this 
boy’s being here ? ” 

No— none of them, I think, but Mammy and Uncle 
Reuben and—” 

I ’ll answer for Mammy,” put in Virginia. 

'' And we know that Reuben is perfectly trustworthy,’^ 
Colonel Trevilian asserted. But we interrupted you, 
my dear.” 

“ I was going to say,” Mrs. Trevilian continued, that 
perhaps Emmeline, being in the dining-room, may have 
suspected something. Still, we have been very careful. 
I hardly think so.” 

Colonel Trevilian shook his head. These are the 


2 74 


ORDER NO. 11 


times when ‘ a man’s foes shall be they of his own house- 
hold/ ” he said. 

Yes,” said Miss Nannie, prophetically, and when 
' a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which 
hath wings shall tell of the matter.’ ” 

Well might the Trevilians fear! 


CHAPTER XXXI 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 

** My hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one 
gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered . . . ; and there was none 
that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.” ISA. x. 14. 

I T was the twentieth day of August, 1863. 

_ They never forgot that day on Grand Prairie. It was 
seared into their memories with a red-hot iron. It was 
the prelude to the carnival of blood at Lawrence. Quan- 
trelhs forces were gathering for it now. From fastnesses 
along the Snai, out of the deep, wooded glens of the Blue, 
men came in twos and threes, exchanging passwords and 
pressing on. 

A band had gone to Dr. Lay's the night before. He 
was at the supper-table when they called him out. He 
went straight to his wife and kissed her good-by. Many 
a last farewell was taken thus that summer. 

'' Oh, my husband 1 " was her moan. 

My dear, be brave ! Our times are in God's hands." 
Arm in arm they stepped to the door. There was no 
accusation; there was no form of trial or defense; they 
simply shot him down with accurate aim that left him 
dead in her clinging arms—the good doctor who had 
brought some of them into the world— who had smoothed 
the way of their fathers and mothers out of it. Forgot- 
ten were the hours of patient watching he had given them ; 
forgotten all the weary miles he had plowed through 
ice and snow to succor them in need ; forgotten the roses 

275 


276 


ORDER NO. 11 


he had called back to their children’s cheeks, and their 
gratitude then. He was on the other side, and they were 
maddened with the taste of blood. Ah! Sherman was 
right. War is hell ! 

They buried him the next day under the willow at Kes- 
wick. He had no family burying-ground of his own, and 
it was not unusual for that kindly people to offer the hos- 
pitality even of a last home to a friend. 

The stricken family was taken to Keswick’s sheltering 
roof. All differences were forgotten now. They had 
been lifelong friends— and he was gone ! 

Evil tidings fly fast. Hardly had the murdered man 
been laid to rest before a mob of infuriated soldiers ap- 
peared on Grand Prairie. The news of a Union man’s 
death added fuel to a fire already blazing. They were on 
their way to Keswick. The story of Quantrell and the 
sick soldier had reached them. Emmeline had been faith- 
less. One of those soldiers pressed on in advance, spar- 
ing neither himself nor his horse. It seemed as if his 
object was to get there before the others. 

The little group of mourners had just left the willow 
and the new-made grave under it, and were sadly wending 
their way to the house, Colonel Trevilian supporting the 
wife of his old friend, whose death was so soon to be vis- 
ited upon him. Only Virginia had lingered to lay flowers 
on the mound— for the sake of the absent one. 

As she rose, her mind filled with thoughts of him and 
of his loss. Uncle Reuben touched her arm. 

'' Miss Figinia,” he said in a low, guarded tone, '' dey ’s 
a man waitin’ down hyamder in de pasture to see you — 
a soldier.” 

A soldier?” repeated Virginia, in amazement. “To 
see me ? ” 

There came to her a swift remembrance of how she had 
gone forth on just such a summons to meet Gordon un- 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 277 


der the honeysuckle. . . . Suppose it should be Gordon ! 
Oh, to be clasped in his strong arms again and sob it all 
out on his breast! She had been through so much! . . . 
Then she smiled sadly at her own folly. Gordon was in 
Mississippi. 

Was it a Federal soldier, Uncle Reuben ? ’’ 

He ’s got on Federal clones, honey,’’ was Uncle Reu- 
ben’s non-committal answer. The time had come when 
no man could judge righteous judgment from the out- 
ward appearance. The old man was fumbling in his 
pocket. 

'' He gimme dis hyeah paper to give you, Miss Figinia. 
I seed him speerin’ roun’ behint de trees in de pasture 
when you-all was gwine to de grave, and I went down 
dar. Yaas’m, he ’s waitin’ down dar in de bresh.” 

Virginia took the note with a beating heart. It was 
written on a scrap of paper torn from a note-book, and 
was in an unknown hand. 

“ There is danger,” it said, for somebody you love. 
If you want to save him, come down to the place that the 
negro will show you, and come now/^ 


It was unsigned. 

Virginia thought rapidly. Who was it that was in 
danger — her father? He was always in danger — every- 
body was in danger on Grand Prairie, for that matter. 
. . . Could it be Gordon, after all ? Perhaps he had come 
back sooner than he had expected and was in the neigh- 
borhood even now, and this was somebody that Rene Tag- 
gart had sent to warn her. She shuddered at the thought. 
... Or Beverly ! They had not seen Beverly for months 
— they did not even know where he was. . . . Perhaps it 
was the boy they had nursed — Jesse James — come back to 


278 ORDER NO. 11 

give them secret information of some new danger from 
Quantrelhs band. 

'' Was it a young boy, Uncle Reuben? ’’ 

“ No’m, hit 's a tall man; got beard all over his face. 
Seem lak I know de favor of dat man, but I can’t tell whai 
I ’ve seed ’im.” 

A big, bearded man ! Who in the world could it be ? 
And what did he want with her? Would she dare to go 
down in the woods to meet a strange man ? Then she re- 
flected that if Uncle Reuben had been told to pilot her, it 
was not likely that the man meant her any bodily harm. 
She picked up the paper and read it again. Danger for 
somebody you love . . . come now” There was an em- 
phasis on that last part that startled her. 

She looked down toward the woods and then around 
the prairie. The western sky was ablaze with gold, and 
mounting up against that brilliant background was a faint 
haze of something that it seemed to her darkened as she 
looked. Was it smoke? 

Uncle Reuben,” she said quietly, what is that over 
there in the west ? ” 

The old man shaded his eyes. '' Hit look to me lak 
dust, Miss Figinia. I ’m mighty ’fraid dey ’s soldiers 
kickin’ up dat cloud.” 

She turned toward the woods. 

‘‘ Go on ! ” she said sharply. '' Show me the way.” 

When they reached the clump of haw-bushes down in 
the pasture— the very ones under which Rene had sobbed 
her heart out that day so long ago— a man got up from 
a fallen log and stood before her. He was heavily 
bearded, and his soldier cap was pulled down over his 
face. He pushed it back and stood looking at her with 
an insolent smile. 

It was Emmons Baird. 

He moved a step forward and then stopped, warned by 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 279 


a look in her eyes. She had drawn herself up to her full 
height and stood quietly waiting his next move. 

'' You know me, I see,’’ he said. 

''Yes. I know you. What do you want?” 

I want to talk with you. I ’ve got something to tell 
you that you ought to know. But I don’t want to say it 
before that old negro. You need n’t be afraid.” 

" I am not afraid,” she said, as quietly as if she were in 
her father’s house. " Uncle Reuben, go over there by that 
big hickory, out of hearing but not out of sight. Watch 
us closely, and if I motion to you — come. . . . Now — 
what have you to say to me ? ” 

He was looking at her in bold admiration. One thing 
that had kept up his strange infatuation for the girl was 
her utter lack of fear. He had planned this meeting in the 
woods with the base thought that, alone with him, an 
armed man, she would feel herself in his power and 
yield more quickly to his wishes. He had expected to be 
complete master of the situation. Somewhat to his be- 
v/ilderment, she was a^ yet mistress of it. Here she was 
directing her servant and himself as if the situation had 
been of her planning. 

"What have you to say?” she repeated. "Say it 
quickly, please, for I must go.” 

" There is a squad of soldiers on their way to this 
place,” he said, speaking so naturally that she was par- 
tially thrown off her guard. Perhaps this was only a 
kindly warning, after all. " You can probably see them 
now out there on the Kansas City road. They will be 
here inside o£ a half-hour. They are after your father. 
You know what that means!” She did know— the 
blood of the last martyr was yet crying from the ground. 
" I ’ll tell you plainly that the plan is to kill him and bum 
Keswick. They ’ve heard of this house being a hospital 
for Quantrell’s soldiers.” 


28 o 


ORDER NO. 11 


She was listening with strained attention. 

He was just a hoy” she said. We never knew he 
belonged to Quantrell till he was going away.’’ 

That won’t make any difference. Do you suppose 
you will get them to believe that? I know those men. 
I belong to that squad. They mean mischief, I tell 
you.” 

Virginia had not stirred. She was white as a sheet. 
‘‘ You have come to warn me,” she said. What can I 
do?” 

He took a step nearer. His hot breath swept her cheek 
as he stooped over her. 

You asked me a minute ago what I wanted. I ’ll tell 
you. Virginia Trevilian, I want you! I want you for 
my wife 1 Say the word and I ’ll send those men back. 
I ’ll tell them I ’ve looked into it and found we ’re wrong. 
Say the word and not a hair of your father’s head shall be 
harmed. Promise to be my wife when the war ’s over 
and I will swear to you that Keswick shall not be touched 
— to-day or any other day. I can keep them from it if I 
want to 1 ” 

Virginia had stood perfectly still during this strange 
love-making, if such it could be called. She was almost 
too astonished at the audacity of the man to try to stop 
him. She turned upon him now with a dangerous light 
in her gray eyes. They looked almost black. 

Your wife 1 ” she said, with slow, cutting emphasis. 

Why, Emmons Baird, you are mad ! stark, raving mad ! 
Do you suppose I would ever marry you?” A dull red 
spread over his dark face at the concentrated scorn of her 
tone. “ And do you suppose my father would save his 
home at the sacrifice of his daughter’s honor ? ” 

I have n’t asked you to sacrifice your honor,” he said 
sullenly. I want to marry you.” She gave a gesture of 
impatient disgust. "" Some men I know don’t ask that ! ” 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 281 


As angry as she was, the significance of the words did 
not escape her. 

You think I am not good enough for you,” he went 
on,— he could not fail to see that this was final, and, like 
the reptile he was, he was gathering himself to strike with 
an envenomed fang, — because I have n’t been off to col- 
lege, and can’t say smooth things like Gordon Lay! Oh, 
I know who you are saving yourself for 1 I ’m not blind ! 
But I ’ll tell you this, Virginia Trevilian, — with all your 
pride and your high-mightiness, you don’t know every- 
thing! I may be what you’d call a bad man — I don’t 
claim to be a Sunday-school boy, — maybe I Ve been a lit- 
tle too free with my gun and rebel cattle, but — listen to this 
— I've never yet ruined a woman! and Gordon Lay — ” 

She faced him with white lips and blazing eyes. 

^Ht ’s a lie!" she said vehemently. ''A base, wicked 
lie! It’s worthy of you, Emmons Baird!” 

He laughed sardonically. “ It ’s no lie. You ’ll see. 
Ask— Lois Chandler ! ” 

She left him without a word. 

When she reached the house an officer and three men 
on horseback were standing before the door. The fences 
had long ago been torn down for the convenience of 
loaded wagons. The horses trampled the pansies ruth- 
lessly. Colonel Trevilian was talking to them, and she 
went straight to his side. 

At a word from the leader one of the men dismounted. 

Get on that horse,” commanded the officer to Colonel 
Trevilian. '' I want you to show us the way to John 
Pasco’s.” 

It was an old subterfuge. Men were led forth thus as 
sheep to the slaughter. Sometimes they came back and 
sometimes they were left dangling at the end of a rope. 
One never knew which it would be, but Virginia had 
reason to believe it would not be the first. 


282 


ORDER NO. 11 


She caught the man’s bridle as he stood there. He was 
mounted on a magnificent black horse, which reared as he 
felt the hand on his bit. 

Let go ! ” commanded the officer. 

She did not release her hold. “ Not till you tell me my 
father shall be safe ! ” 

The horse reared and came down and reared again, 
taking the girl with him. 

“ Virginia ! child! her father cried in an agony of fear. 
Every man in that yard expected to see her trampled. 

Let go, I tell you ! ” thundered the man. '' This horse 
is a stallion ! He ’ll paw you to death ! ” 

Her face was white to the lips, but she clung to the bit 
and lifted a defiant head. 

I won’t let go ! until you promise me my father shall 
not be harmed ! ” 

The beast reared again. 

I promise ! ” cried the man. “ Good God ! you can’t 
see a woman killed ! ” He looked at her with fierce ad- 
miration. 

‘‘ We ’ll show you the way,” said Virginia, gathering 
up her hair, which had dropped from its fastenings. ‘‘ I 
will go behind my father.” 

When they returned, the yard was full of men. The 
house had been stripped. Wagons were driving away 
from the door piled with the last things that Keswick had 
to give up. The negroes were gathering their belongings 
together with averted faces, and other wagons were 
waiting for them. A tiny line of flame was creeping 
up the wall, and the hand of Emmons Baird held the 
torch. 

My God ! ” groaned the Colonel. This is the last ! ” 

He pleaded for it then. His pride was crushed. Kes- 
\.ick had been to him as a child he had reared. They 
laughed him to scorn. It was a rebel nest, they said,— 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 283 

had n’t he harbored QuantrelFs men ? And the women 
wrung their hands in impotent despair. 

The old man turned upon them at last. 

'' ' What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces and 
grind the faces of the poor ? saith the Lord of hosts.’ ” 

His soul was full of the burning words of the Hebrew 
prophet. They surged within him for utterance. 

'' We take our orders from Colonel Jennison,” said the 
officer on the black horse. We have n’t anything to 
do with the Lord of hosts.” And the others laughed. 

You will have ! ” cried the Colonel, in a voice that 
thrilled with intensity. He shook his finger in the man’s 
face. He was desperate now — it did not matter much 
what became of him. ^ Ye have eaten up the vineyard ; 
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.’ And — ^ the Lord 
rideth on a swift cloud 1 ’ ” 

In spite of their bravado, they were startled by his 
words. They thought of them the next day when the 
storm broke upon Lawrence. 

Once only, as all this was going on, did Emmons Baird 
speak to Virginia. When the flames leaped from porch 
to roof and the thick smoke poured from every aperture, 
he stepped to her side. The wagons were driving off —the 
negroes were gone— the soldiers were preparing to leave. 

'' What do you think now of your choice?.” he sneered. 

'' Better than ever ! ” she said defiantly. '' I took you 
then for a bad man. Now I know you for a fiend incar» 
nate! Women don’t mate with monsters!” 

And at the moment of his triumph Emmons Baird had 
the old feeling of defeat. 

I ’m not through yet,” he said grimly, and he pointed 
his revolver at Colonel Trevilian. 

She heard the click and raised a face of despair to the 
officer on the black horse. He had ridden up to have a 
last word with her. He thought he had earned it. 


284 


ORDER NO. 11 


Drop that gun, Baird ! ’’ he shouted above the roar of 
the flames. I Ve given my word to the girl, and, by 
God! Ill stand by itl’^ 

The pistol dropped. '' You ’re ahead,” said Emmons 
Baird, menacingly ; ‘‘ but you ’ll not always be I I ’ll strike 
you yet 1 ” 

There was many another burning house that night on 
Grand Prairie. They started up like beacon fires. By 
their lurid light grim men, with set faces and the hearts 
of demons, rode into the west. 

When the sun went down, Keswick was a mass of 
charred timbers, its chimneys and its blackened pillars 
standing guard over the grave of hope. 

Colonel Trevilian went about the yard like one dis- 
traught. His home was gone. His people were gone. 
He had not believed they would leave him, but the love of 
liberty is as strong as the love of life. 

It is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of 
perplexity,” he muttered. Alas 1 that I should live to 
see it 1 ” 

Virginia clung to him. 

'' We will build it again some day, father,” she said, 
with quivering lips, — “ when Beverly comes back — ” 
Beverly 1 Where is Beverly ? Hunted like a wild 
beast ! Ah, Beverly, my son 1 my son 1 ” 

He strode up and down before the spot where his roof- 
tree had been. He had borne all bravely until this. But 
Keswick was the apple of his eye. It was to have been his 
son’s and his son’s son’s, and— it was gone ! 

The wind stirred his gray hairs. His head was bared 
to every blast now. A sudden gust brought a shower of 
smoldering sparks around them. He stretched out his 
arms with a gesture of despair. 

' I am poor and sorrowful,’ ” he said in a broken 
voice. ^ Thou feedest me with the bread of tears.’ ” 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 285 


Then his mood changed. He raised his clenched hand 
to heaven. 

‘ Let death seize upon them,’ ” he cried in a harsh, 
stern voice that made Virginia shrink from him, so little 
did it seem like his own, ‘‘ ‘ and let them go quick down 
into hell!”’ 

Father! ” 

He was not to be stopped. The waters of a full cup 
had been wrung out to him that day. 

‘ Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not 1 . . . 
Let their habitation be desolate! . . . Let their children 
be continually vagabonds and beg ! Let them seek their 
bread also out of the desolate places!’ ... Yea, Met 
them be blotted out of the book of the living 1 ’ ” 

‘‘Father! . . . Father! . . . come and sit down in the 
summer-house ! See ! that is n’t burned ! Why, here is 
some of the honeysuckle unscorched.” 

And so she babbled on, thinking meanwhile in her an- 
guished heart, “ Where is mother ? Why does n’t she 
come ! ” 

She came at last. 

“ I ’ve been busy making down beds in the loom-house, 
dear. I think we are going to be right comfortable, after 
all, to-night. Mammy saved a fev/ things and Uncle 
Reuben has been filling a spare tick with straw. It ’s for- 
tunate it is summer. Oh, no ! Uncle Reuben and Mammy 
didn’t go. . . . We’ll get along! Virginia, help Mammy 
about the supper, will you, dear ? I ’ll sit with your father 
in the summer-house a while— as we used to do.” 

She drew the gray head to her shoulder. She did not 
like the strained look about his mouth. 

“ Mammy,” said Virginia, as she washed out some tin 
cups for the coffee, “ have you heard anything about how 
the Chandlers are getting along in all this frightful 
time? ” She spoke with studied carelessness. 

Mammy shut her lips together and turned each slice of 


286 


ORDER NO. 11 


middling before she spoke. '' Miss Figinia, dey 's some 
mighty ugly stories goin’ roun’ ’bout dat Chan’ler gyurl. 
Dey ain’t fittin’ for you to hyeah.” 

Virginia set the cup down and went outside. She did 
not ask what the stories were. 

Is there anything in life more pathetic than women’s ef- 
forts to be cheerful with fresh graves and blasted hopes 
around them? From where she sat at the supper-table, 
Mrs. Lay could see the weeping willow,— Mrs. Trevilian, 
the ashes of her home,— but both smiled and kept the con- 
versation going. 

When the meal was over Mammy brought out the 
family Bible, which she had managed to save from the 
wreck, and Mrs. Trevilian handed it to her husband. 

We will have prayers now, dear, and go to bed. It 
has been a trying day. Come, Mammy, you and Uncle 
Reuben — we ’ll keep together to-night. 

They sat on boxes and broken-backed chairs around 
the room in Mammy’s house that had given them shelter. 
Virginia and Sallie were on the door-step, and the two old 
negroes outside the window. Colonel Trevilian took the 
book— the sacred book that had come down to him from 
his fathers. In it was the family record of four genera- 
tions. There was a set, tense look about his face. 

'' Read the thirty-seventh Psalm, dear, or the fourteenth 
of John.” 

He did not heed his wife’s words. She was not sure 
that he heard them. He turned to Job, the nineteenth 
chapter, and read in a hard, metallic voice : 

Know now that God hath overthrown me, and hath 
compassed me with His net. 

Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard : I cry 
aloud, but there is no judgment. 


THE SACK OF KESWICK 287 


He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and He 
hath set darkness in my paths. 

He hath stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown 
from my head.’^ 

He stopped. Every head was bowed. They were 
weeping silently, but his eyes were dry and burning. 

He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone : 
and mine hope hath He removed like a tree. 

‘‘ He hath also kindled his wrath against me, and He 
counteth me unto Him as one of His enemies.’’ 

Mrs. Trevilian reached out and took his hand. No, 
father, no ! ' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 

Him,’ ” she said softly. 

He read straight on. 

His troops come together, and raise up their way 
against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle. 

He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine ac- 
quaintance are verily estranged from me. 

'' My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have 
forgotten me.” 

Mrs. Lay was sitting on the other side of him. She 
laid her hand gently on his knee, but he did not see it. 
His voice rose. The bitterness of his tone increased. 

They that dwell in my house, and my maids, count me 
for a stranger : I am an alien in their sight. 

'' I called my servant, and he gave me no answer—” 

His voice broke then. The defection of his negroes had 
been a blow to him. He had not believed they would 


288 


ORDER NO. 11 


leave him. It is a fearful thing to see a strong man break 
down. Sallie looked at him with fascinated eyes, while 
Virginia was sobbing in Miss Nannie’s lap. 

He read the words again with an intensity that was 
painful. 

I called my servant, and he gave me no answer—” 

It was more than Uncle Reuben could bear. It did not 
seem possible to him that this was reading. It was an ap- 
peal and a personal reproach. He put his head in the 
window, his black face working convulsively, and the 
tears running down his cheeks. 

'' When M you call me, marster ? I ain’t hyeahed you.” 

Colonel Trevilian closed the book. Then he spread out 
his hands and looked around with a pitiful gesture of sup- 
plication. 

Have pity upon me,— have pity upon me, O ye my 
friends ; for the hand of God hath touched me.” 

His hands fell at his side and his head upon his breast. 

For a quarter of a century his '' Let us pray ” had fol- 
lowed the reading of the Scriptures. They waited for it 
now, but it did not come. Not once in that quarter of a 
century had Mrs. Trevilian ever taken the reins of family 
worship into her own hands. But to-day, as they fell 
from her husband’s nerveless grasp, she gathered them 
up. 

'' Uncle Reuben,” she said, lead us in prayer.” 

They knelt together on the puncheon floor — a stricken 
band— and the old man poured out his soul before God. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


ORDER NO. II 

I NTO the west rode Quantrell’s band,— desperate 
men all, — past smoking ruins and blackened fields, 
over the border into the enemy's land. Through the hush 
of the summer evening that should have spoken God's 
peace to their souls, in stillness of night, 'neath stars that 
said, if only they had listened, '' God reigns— be still ! " 
into the dawn, the rosy, peaceful dawn, they rode. 

Lawrence was the acknowledged seat of anti-slavery 
influence. Its intelligence directed . the free-State move- 
ment. There had been war to the knife between this town 
and the border in 1856. Marauding bands from Kansas 
had been credited, rightly or wrongly, to Lawrence. 
Stolen property had been sold at auction on its streets. 
Men seeking to recover that property had been shot down 
within its borders for their temerity. For these reasons 
it had become an object of special animosity to the long- 
suffering border, and passion is not discriminating. 

By a strange fatality Lawrence had been disarmed ten 
days before. 

They fell upon the doomed city in the early morning. 
When they left it one hundred and eighty men lay wel- 
tering in blood. 

Jennison has laid waste our borders," they said. He 
has ravaged our homes and murdered our kindred. We 
have come for revenge,— and we have got it I " 

A cry of horror went up from the land at that day's 
19 289 


290 


ORDER NO. 11 


bloody work, and tfie border shook with fear. They kneAV 
retribution would come, and that they would be in its 
track. 

Five days later Colonel Trevilian was on his way to 
Lexington. A few cattle had escaped the general round- 
up, and he hoped to get them to Illinois. The old horse 
he rode was one that had been left by the soldiers as worn- 
out. His own were all gone. 

He had hesitated about taking this trip. There was 
danger to himself in going, and danger to the cattle in 
staying. Virginia insisted upon accompanying him as 
far as Lexington. They would “ ride and tie,'' she said, — 
she would be all right. Mr. Merriweather would see that 
she got home. Women were the protectors in those days ; 
for, bad as both sides were, they rarely ever harmed a 
woman. 

They had started and got as far as the first cross-roads. 
On the sign-post was a fresh-looking printed paper. 
Colonel Trevilian rode up to it. It was headed General 
Orders No. ii." 

As he read it a groan broke from him. 

“What is it, father?" From Virginia's seat behind 
him she could not see, but she knew it had struck him 
hard, whatever it was. 

He read it aloud : 

“ Headquarters District of the Border, 

“ Kansas City, Mo., August 25, 1863. 

First — All persons living in Cass, Jackson, and Bates 
Counties, Missouri, and in that part of Vernon included 
in this district, except those living within one mile of the 
limits of Independence, Hickman's Mills, Pleasant Hill, 
and Harrisonvillc, and except those in that part of Kaw 
township, Jackson County, north of Brush Creek and west 
of the Big Blue, embracing Kansas City and Westport, 


ORDER NO. 11 


291 


are hereby ordered to remove from their present places of 
residence within fifteen days from the date hereof. 

Those who, within that time, establish their loyalty 
to the satisfaction of the commanding officer of the mili- 
tary station nearest their present places of residence, will 
receive from him certificates stating the fact of their loy- 
alty and the names of the witnesses by whom it can be 
shown. All who receive such certificates will be per- 
mitted to remove to any military station in this district, or 
to any part of the State of Kansas,—’’ 

'' Kansas I ” interrupted Virginia, scornfully. 

except the counties on the eastern borders of the 
State. All others shall remove out of this district. 

'' Officers commanding companies and detachments 
serving in the counties named, will see that this paragraph 
is promptly obeyed. 

Second— AW grain or hay in the field, or under shel- 
ter, in the district from which the inhabitants are required 
to move within reach of military stations, after the 9th 
day of September next, will be taken to such stations and 
turned over to the proper officers there ; and report of the 
amount so turned over made to the district headquarters, 
specifying the names of all loyal owners and the amount 
of such produce taken from them. All grain and hay 
found in such district after the 9th day of September 
next, not convenient to such stations, will be destroyed.” 

The order was signed : 

H. Hannahs, Adjutant, 

** By order of Brigadier-General Ewing.” 

The cattle were browsing by the roadside. 

We will go back, honey,” Colonel Trevilian said, in a 


292 


ORDER NO. 11 


dead tone. And Virginia, who had been riding behind 
him on the worn-out army horse, now resting one hand 
in his pocket to steady herself, now balancing without 
holding on at all, put her arms around his waist. His 
voice sounded as it did the night Keswick was burned, — 
as if something within him had broken. 

The next two weeks were long remembered in Jackson 
County, and Cass, and Bates, — as Gabriel and Evange- 
line remembered Acadia, as the reconcentrados '' re- 
membered their herding in the Cuban camps, as the 
Filipinos remember the time when Samar was made a 
'' howling wilderness.” 

The mandate spared none. All must go. How, it did 
not say. There was no transportation provided for them. 
They had no means of providing it for themselves. The 
horses and mules were in Kansas. The wagons and car- 
riages were with them. Only those too worthless to take 
had been left. 

Strange teams went out from those counties in the next 
fortnight,— counties that had boasted of their thorough- 
breds and stock-farms, — a broken-down mule and an ox 
hitched together, or a cow sometimes when the ox was 
not to be had, or a pair of yearling calves yoked in front 
of an improvised cart. An3^thing that had wheels was at 
a premium. Women went out trundling a wheelbarrow 
with their children's clothes in it,— such as were not al- 
ready on the little jayhawkers. Grandmothers rode horse- 
back, with a baby in arms and two behind them, while 
the mothers walked and drove the cow that was to supply 
them with food until they reached succor. 

Fortunately, there was not much left to transport. A 
few quilts for a roadside bed, a skillet and a coffee-pot, a 
side of meat, and a bag of corn-meal, with such few gar- 
ments as had not been “ confiscated,” — these made up the 
bill of lading in most cases. 


ORDER NO. 11 


293 


As the days went by the roads were filled with the 
wretched exiles, going they knew not where. Bare- 
footed women and children, stripped of all but a scant 
covering for their bodies, struggled on through the dust 
and heat of an August sun. Behind them were their 
smoking homes ; before them, the world that was so 
big ! 

They fell by the wayside sometimes and were picked up 
by pitiful ones who walked that tired children might ride. 
A great heart of sympathy throbbed through it all, and 
the fellow-feeling that makes us wondrous kind. 

The story of the little sacrifices made, of the cheerful 
deceptions that did not deceive, of the patient bearing of 
one another's burdens, of the “ lips that smiled when 
hearts were like lead," of the tears forced back when an- 
other was looking, — that story will make beautiful read- 
ing some day when the scroll is opened. 

The Trevilians had nothing but an old cart left. They 
put to it two yearling calves. It was a moderately un- 
certain team, but they were thankful enough to get it. 
In this rode Mrs. Lay, Mrs. Trevilian, and Miss Nannie. 
Virginia and Sallie walked with Colonel Trevilian be- 
hind the cow, and Mrs. Devereau rode a broken-down 
horse. 

They had been relieved of the care of the cattle by the 
soldiers who came to execute the order. Naturally, peo- 
ple going out in wheelbarrows and superannuated carts 
could not transport much furniture. But it was taken 
care of, as the wagon-trains with their freight of house- 
hold goods, moving westward, attested. Where life is ex- 
tinct evil birds congregate. They were not lacking when 
life went out of those homes. 

Men were shot down sometimes in the very act of obey- 
ing the order of exile, and their wagons and effects seized 
by their murderers. Then there would be a hurried 


294 


ORDER NO. 11 


burial, a hasty gathering up of the little that was left, and 
a frantic pressing on. 

'' Officers will see that this order is promptly obeyed,’^ 
said the order. They did. 

When it came to the test. Mammy declined to go. 

Miss Bettie, how you know but Marse Beverly gwine- 
ter come back hyeah some day? No’m. I’m gwineter 
stay right hyeah. Dey ain’t nothin’ lef’ fur de jayhawk- 
ers to git, an’ I don’t reckon dey gwine take off me an’ de 
ole man.” 

From this decision she was not to be moved. She was 
something like a cat about locality. 

In thinking it over, it really seemed the best thing to 
do. They knew not what was before them. There would 
be two less mouths to fill, in any event. 

'' You may do as you wish,” said Colonel Trevilian. 
'' You are free now.” 

Humph ! ” grunted Mammy ; '' I ain’t studyin’ ’bout 
freedom. ’T is Marse Beverly I ’m thinkin’ ’bout. Dat 
chile sho’ to be hyeah toreckly.” 

Miss Tiny went out on horseback. Miss Tony riding 
behind her. On the horn of the saddle hung an old car- 
pet-bag that held their earthly possessions. Across 
Miss Tiny’s lap was the sword. General James Bascom 
had written to them for it at the beginning of the war. 
They had replied in a brief note written in the third 
person. 

The Misses Bascom,” it said, acknowledge the re- 
ceipt of General Bascom’s letter asking that his sword be 
sent to him. They beg, however, that they may be allowed 
to retain it as a cherished memento of a brother who is 
dead.” 


The two ladies followed close behind the Trevilian 



Leaving the old home 


*^‘^***‘ -i^.. 




ORDER NO. 11 


295 


cart, and Miss Nannie and the girls got a good deal of 
amusement out of them before they reached Lexington. 

Mammy and Uncle Reuben went to the “ big gate ’’ to 
see them off. The road was filled with forlorn little 
companies; bands of soldiers harried them out of the 
land ; there was a pillar of cloud behind them, a pillar of 
fire on every hand. 

But alas ! there was no Moses to lead them forth. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


A DARK-SKINNED WHITE LADY ’’ 

M ammy was down in the pasture looking for the 
old Dominecker/^ Having in the last two years 
been corraled and fastened for safe-keeping to every piece 
of underbrush in the pasture, the rooster had adopted that 
umbrageous retreat as his permanent abode, and was giv- 
ing Mammy no end of trouble to keep up with him. 

The supply of live-stock was now so meager that she 
cherished the Dominecker.” He and his small harem 
and one failing cow made up the list, if we except a super- 
annuated mule that had been turned out on the prairie to 
die by some passing teamster when he had procured a 
worthy substitute. 

It was nearly a week after the hejira. The limit was 
up. A few belated ones still straggled along the big 
road,’' but the greater part of them were gathered now 
on the river banks in Jackson and Lafayette, awaiting 
transportation to any point that promised a haven, to any 
friend who could give possible succor. 

The burning of the crops was over. The land was laid 
waste and brought to silence. Gladness was taken away, 
and joy out of the plentiful field. 

Only a few had dared remain. Old man Chandler sul- 
lenly defied the law. He had done nothing, he said, that 
he should be driven from his home. He had been loyal 
from first to last. His friends were all in New England ; 
he could not reach them. If he went into a military post 
296 


“DARK-SKINNED WHITE LADY” 297 


he would starve. All he had in the world was here, and 
here he proposed to stay. Old Mr. Collins was another 
who was going to try it. 

Mammy had heard shots in the night. She had not 
thought anything of it, for roving bands of bushwhackers 
with jayhawkers in nominal pursuit still roamed across 
the country. A man of Quantrelks dashing methods 
cared little for the depopulation of a strip of thirty miles, 
and there had never been anything like a determined effort 
to drive him out. Had there been, by the silent man who 
proposed to fight it out on this line if it takes all sum- 
mer,'' or one like him, it would have been accomplished. 
Nobody supposes that it would have been impossible to 
exterminate two or three hundred men had there been a 
strong purpose to do it. 

But— No man that warreth entangleth himself with 
the affairs of this life," remarked Paul to Timothy many 
years ago. The good soldiers from Kansas had entangled 
themselves with the impedimenta of pillage, and always it 
was the old plea made two thousand years ago, And 
behold, ... as thy servant was busy here and there, he 
[the man] was gone." 

'' Chick— chick— chick-e-e ! Chick— chick— chick-e-e ! " 

Mammy had a pan of meal and was trying to tempt her 
family from retirement. But the Dominecker " had a 
wisdom born of stormy times. For many of his kind 
that call had meant decapitation. He would wait and see 
whether it was peace or war. 

On one side of the cow-path was a thicket of haw- 
bushes. Mammy pushed the bushes aside. 

'' I lay dat ole fool “ Dominecker " is hidin' roun' hyeah 
somewhar. Look lak even de fowls don't know who to 
trus'." 

She parted the bushes and peered in. The pan of meal 
fell from her grasp. In a pool of blood lay the body of a 


298 


ORDER NO. 11 


man. His hat had fallen over his face, but there was 
something strangely familiar about the tall form. 

'' Hit can’t be ! ” muttered Mammy. Dem ’s soldier 
clo’es.” 

She raised the hat cautiously. A fair young face looked 
up at her with unseeing eyes. 

It was Beverly. 

He was so white and ghastly that she thought surely he 
was dead. The next minute, she tore open his coat and 
put her ear to his heart. It was beating feebly. 

Uncle Reuben was roused by a clarion-call as he sat 
dozing before the cabin door. There was no need of se- 
crecy. They were alone on the great prairie. They held 
a hurried consultation. Out in the lot, where it had been 
since last winter, was an old sled used for hauling wood. 
Of course it had not been put under cover,— that was not 
the custom of the country, — and in that way it had escaped 
the destruction that had fallen upon the stable. The mule 
was hastily hitched to the sled. Mammy’s feather-bed (the 
only one left) put on it, and on this improvised stretcher 
the wounded boy was tenderly placed. He was carried to 
Mammy’s house and laid on Mammy’s bed, and through 
the night watches her faithful hands ministered to him. 

When Beverly Trevilian came to himself the next day. 
Mammy’s black face was bending over him. To the 
wounded boy, sore pressed and spent, it was like a glimpse 
of heaven. 

Mammy!” 

Yes, honey. Mammy ’s hyeah.” It was what she used 
to say to him in his babyhood when he woke and cried 
with fright. He closed his eyes and lay still, fearing to 
move lest he should wake and find himself again in the 
brush. His thoughts were confused. He could not re- 
member how he got here, or— or— he gave a sigh— he was 
too weak to think— after a while— perhaps— 


-DARK-SKINNED WHITE LADY" 299 


Just then Uncle Reuben, who had been gone all morn- 
ing to Mammy’s wonderment and somewhat to her in- 
dignation, appeared in the doorway. His wife could see 
from his face that something had happened. She shook 
her finger warningly and hurried toward him. 

- What is it ? ” she whispered, supposing it was nothing 
less than another visitation of jayhawkers. 

But it was not a threatened danger this time to her or 
her charge. 

Dilsey ! de jayhawkers done shot ole man Chan’ler ! ” 
“ De jayhawkers ! Why, he ’s Union, ain’t he? ” 

In her excitement, she raised her voice beyond the 
safety pitch, and the sick man caught the sound. What 
dey wanter shoot him fur? ” 

Dey say he ’s been harborin’ secesh.” 

‘‘ Ole man Chan’ler ! I never hyeahed of ’im harborin’ 
anything befo’ ! Who was it ? ” 

“ Dey say some young man been consortin’ dar, an’ de 
Fed’rals dey got wind of it an’ lit down on ’im dis mornin’, 
an’ dat was de las’ of ’im ! ” 

“ You don’t mean dey kilt him? ” 

Dey shot him down lak a dog! I got dar jes’ as dey 
done it.” 

Mammy cast an anxious glance toward the bed. Her 
patient lay perfectly still. 

“ Whar’s de gyurl?” 

Settin’ dar by her paw’s dead body 1 Dilsey, dat 
gyurl ain’t shed a tear 1 Dey ’s a mighty cur’ous look in 
her eyes. Look to me lak~” 

Mammy! ” 

They started. Beverly had raised himself on his 
elbow and was staring at them with horror-stricken eyes. 
He had caught snatches of what they were saying. 
-What is it? Tell me! Tell me, I say! ” as they hesi- 
tated. 


300 ORDER NO 11 

'' Go on/' said Mammy to the old man ; '' de mischief 's 
done did now ! " 

And Uncle Reuben told the tale. 

When he had finished, Beverly Trevilian sank back 
with a groan. 

“ For harboring rebels ! And he would n't give the 
name ! My God ! My God ! " 

The old negroes looked at him wonderingly. Death in 
every form was so common in those days that they had 
become habituated to it. They could not understand his 
excitement. 

Uncle Reuben ! " He was on his elbow again and his 
voice had the old Trevilian ring of command. Take 
the mule and bring Lois Chandler here. Tell her I sent 
you. Make haste! There 's no time to lose! Tell her I 
will see that her father has proper burial, and then you 
attend to it. Go on 1 " 

Uncle Reuben looked at Mammy. He was not quite 
sure that his young master was in his right mind, and 
Mammy always solved his doubts. The old woman was 
looking at Beverly with professional eyes now. She 
hardly knew herself whether this was sympathy or de- 
lirium. 

''Go on 1 " he cried. " Don't stand there gaping at 
me ! " 

Mammy came close to the bed. 

" Marse Beverly, dis ain't no place fur dat young 
gyurl right now." She spoke respectfully but firmly. " I 
reckon Reuben better take her over to ole Mr. Collins's. 
Dey won't turn her off." 

" No 1 No 1 " he said vehemently. " She 's coming here. 
There is no other place for her. This is her rightful place. 
Uncle Reuben, tell her I said so. She must come 1 " 

There was a rebellion in Mammy's face that had never 
been there before in all the years she had served this 
family. 


“DARK-SKINNED WHITE LADY” 301 


‘‘ Marse Beverly ! She spoke sullenly, with a look of 
suspicious resentment in her countenance. What is dat 
white 'oman to you dat you boun’ to have her hyeah whe- 
ther or no ? 

Her look was a revelation to Beverly Trevilian. It 
showed him the depth of the shame and contumely his 
folly had prepared for the innocent. 

'' What is she to me? '' he said wildly. Mammy, she 
is my wife ! 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


THE CERTIFICATE 

F or answer Mammy wet a towel and laid it on Bev- 
erly’s hot forehead. 

Dat chile ’s out of his haid,” she remarked under her 
breath to Uncle Reuben. 

Beverly tore the towel off and threw it from him. 

“ I am not out of my head, I tell you ! ” he said. '' You 
treat me as if I were a child, Mammy ! Lois Chandler is 
my wife— my wife! We were married last winter, before 
I went South. It ’s true, I tell you ! ” 

His vehemence was carrying conviction to their minds, 
but Mammy would not accept it meekly. Her whole soul 
rose in rebellion at this ignoble alliance for a Trevilian. 

'' In God’s name, Marse Beverly, what did you do it 
fur?” 

Mammy, I loved her. I felt afraid I might not get 
back, and I could not go away without feeling that she 
would have the protection of my name if anything hap- 
pened to me. I meant it right — God knows I meant it 
right! but — I ’m afraid I did wrong. Go and get her! ” 
he cried feverishly. Bring her to me! Poor child!— 
homeless and fatherless, and — oh. Mammy ! take her to 
your heart ! She needs you ! ” 

Go ’long ! ” said Mammy to Uncle Reuben, the tears 
rolling down her cheeks. Bring all ’er traps. Tell ’er 
Mammy ’s got a place fur ’er.” (“ De Lord knows whar 

it’ll be!” she added to herself.) 

When the old man was gone and Beverly quieted down, 
%02 


THE CERTIFICATE 


303 


Mammy went to the bed. She had been doing some pretty 
logical thinking for one not acquainted with the syllogism. 
The honor of the family demanded that this marriage be 
substantiated. 

“ Marse Beverly/' she said, changing the cloth on his 
head, '' is you got any paper to show you an’ dat gyurl 
was married ? ” 

“ Yes." He looked up eagerly. I came up here all 
the way from Arkansas to get it. I did n’t think of it at 
first — we did n’t, either of us — it was all so hurried ; but 
when I got to thinking about it down there— and specially 
lately— I knew we ought to have it, and so I came back. 
Mammy, I was going to tell father and mother all about 
it,— but you know how that went. I was too late.’’ 

Yaas, honey,’’ said Mammy, soothingly; 1 know. 
An’ ’bout de paper—’’ She was afraid he would lapse 
into sleep or unconsciousness before she found out. 

“ I went down to old Mr. Marvin’s for it last night, — 
he was the one that married us, — and I was bringing it to 
show to you and tell you about it. I thought, if anything 
happened to Lois or to me, it would be better for you to 
know about it, and you could tell mother what I said. 
And then the man shot me— and— I did n’t know anything 
more till I came— to — ’’ 

An’ whar did you put it, honey ? ’’ 

Beverly did not answer. He had dropped off to sleep 
from very weakness. Mammy gave him a little shake. 
She did not dare to wait. 

“ Whar did you put it, Marse Beverly ? ’’ 

Put what? Oh — yes— the paper. It’s in my pocket 
—my breast—’’ He had dropped off again. 

When she was sure he was asleep. Mammy tiptoed to 
where his clothes lay. She searched the breast-pocket 
and every other pocket ; turning them inside out and shak- 
ing the garments. 


I 


304 


ORDER NO. 11 


The paper was gone. 

Had it ever been there? This was the question that 
raised its head again and again as she watched her charge. 
Had he ever had the paper, or was this flightiness ? And 
if he had had it, would other people believe it ? Suppose— 
Why would anybody want to take a paper like that? 
His watch was gone, and his pocket-book. It was easy 
enough to understand that ; but a paper — 

Beverly moved restlessly. His wound hurt him and 
his fever was beginning to rise. He opened his eyes as 
Mammy wet the cloth. 

Did you find it? ’’ he panted. 

‘‘ Yaas, honey,’^ Mammy said, without hesitation ; I 
found it. Hit’s put away safe under my baid. Go to 
sleep.” 

While this search was going on at the cabin, Lois was 
receiving her husband’s summons and preparing to obey. 
Uncle Reuben had told her but a modicum of the truth in 
regard to Beverly. He had been hurt and she was to 
come to him — that was all, except the kindly assurances 
sent by Mammy and the additional ones prompted by his 
own gentle old heart. 

And so, on a mule guided by the old negro, Beverly 
Trevilian’s young wife was brought home to Keswick, 
Uncle Reuben shaking his head and thinking mournfully 
meanwhile of that other day when he had driven Marse 
William and Miss Bettie in state to the Keswick in old 
Albemarle. It was a sad enough home-coming — from the 
house of the dead to the house of the dying — anybody 
could see that; but they were together at last, and there 
was nobody to dispute her right, and Youth forgets Fear 
when it has Love. 

The day after she came. Mammy drew her into the 
other room. Did she know anything about the paper? 
Not a thing, Lois said. Beverly had said he was going 


THE CERTIFICATE 


305 


down to Mr. Marvin's to get it and then was coming back 
to the house, but she had waited and waited and he did n't 
come. It was the next morning that the soldiers came and 
called her father out, and— she shuddered and crept close 
to Mammy. 

She did not seem at all disturbed at the failure to find 
the certificate. 

I don't see what diiference it makes, anyway," she 
said. We know we were married all right— by a 
preacher — of course it was n't the Presbyterian preacher, 
but that would n't make any difference, would it ? 
Mammy hardly knew, but thought not. And there were 
two witnesses." 

‘‘ Who was dey ? " Mammy caught at a straw. 

Why, there was father and — You see," she broke off, 
I told father all about it. I promised Gordon Lay I 
would the night he came down to see me and I was afraid 
to take him in the house for fear father would hear us, 
and we stood out by the big lilac bush and talked." 

'' How come Marse Gordon to go down dar ? " de- 
manded Mammy. 

'' Why, he had had a letter from Beverly, he said, telling 
him all about our being engaged and asking him if he 
did n't think— everything being so uncertain, and all that 
— that the best thing would be for us to be married when 
he came back the next time. Beverly had told me once 
that if we ever should be married secretly he thought it 
would be better to tell Gordon, or somebody like that that 
could be trusted, all about it beforehand. I 'm sure I 
don't know why, if father knew about it — but that 's what 
he said." 

Humph ! " said Mammy. At that moment she could 
hardly forgive old man Chandler, even in his grave. 
An' what did Marse Gordon say ? " 

Lois gave a half-pout. Why, he came straight down 


3o6 


ORDER NO. 11 


there that night as soon as he got home, and tried to per« 
suade me never, never to do it (those were his very 
words), even if Beverly did want me to. He said it would 
be a great wrong to both of us to be married secretly,— 
but I don’t think so at all, if we loved each other,— and 
I would n’t promise, because Beverly can just make me 
do anything, and I knew I would n’t hold out if he talked 
to me the way he does sometimes.” Mammy could un- 
derstand. Beverly could always wheedle her out of her 
eyes. She looked at Lois with more sympathy after this, 
and a better understanding of the situation. 

“ And then Gordon said, anyway, I must never do any- 
thing without telling father— and I did n’t ! I told father 
all about it, and he went down to Mr. Marvin’s with us. 
So it ’s all right — now ! ” 

Lois was almost in tears, for there was marked disap- 
proval in Mammy’s looks. 

“ When zvas dat Marse Gordon was down dar ? ” 

“ Oh, it was long before we were married,” Lois said. 
She was glad to tell about it. Her feelings had been so 
pent up that it was a relief to tell. There would have been 
no stopping the flow now. And Mammy did not want to 
stop it. She wanted to know. '' It was the very night 
before the bushwhackers got after him, and Rene Taggart 
got him off, — Beverly told me all about that, — and we 
were not married till nearly the next Christmas. I had on 
my — ” 

Who was de other witness ? ” interrupted Mammy. 

'' It was Mrs. Marvin. Mr. Marvin said we would have 
to have two— and we did. So you see it ’s all right. That 
was just the week before she died. I know she was buried 
on Christmas day.” 

And a heap she had to be ‘thankful fur when she 
was ! ” groaned Mammy. It seemed to her just then that 
life, with its complications, was a good deal less desirable 


THE CERTIFICATE 


307 


than a safe sleep like Mrs. Marvin’s. But the childish 
recital she had listened to, and the ignorance of the world 
it displayed, filled her with a sudden tenderness for the 
girl. 

'' Go on an’ lay down, honey, while he ’s asleep. Res’ 
all you kin.” 

The next day Mammy left Beverly with Uncle Reuben 
and Lois, and trudged down to Mr. Marvin’s. She did 
not tell them where she was going — it might all be futile : 
but — “ Hit ’s de onlies’ chance dey is now to git dat stiff- 
kit,” she said to herself. '' Of co’se I can’t git dat same 
one, but I reckon Mr. Marvin would give me another.” 
She was growing hourly more anxious to secure it, for 
Beverly was not doing well. 

By the road, Mr. Marvin’s was some distance from 
Keswick, but Mammy knew a short cut and took it. 

There were no signs of life about the place when she 
got there. She knocked, and only the echoes answered. 
She knocked again and a hungry cat miaued at her feet 
— miaued ravenously. Then she opened the door and 
went in, and finding no one there, pushed on to the 
kitchen. 

An astonishing sight met her eyes. There, an hour 
by sun,” as she would have said, the Marvin dishes were 
unwashed. A tallow candle on the table had burned to 
the socket and gone out. Through the open door she 
could see an unmade bed. There was evidence on every 
hand of a hasty departure. And, in truth, there had been. 
When the order came, Mr. Marvin, the one preacher left 
in the neighborhood, had declared that, like Mr. Collins, 
he was going to stick it out, but the tragedy at old man 
Chandler’s was too much for him. He had fled. 

Having satisfied herself that the occupant of the house 
was really gone. Mammy began to experience a feeling of 
awe. It was like being in the house of the dead. She 


3o8 


ORDER NO. 11 


edged toward the door of the front room that she had 
passed through. It was so big and so empty. If she had 
been a Catholic she would have crossed herself. As it 
was, she talked to the cat. 

With her hand on the door-knob and her foot on the 
step, she drew an easier breath and looked around. On 
the table lay the old leather-back Bible, the covers sewed 
to the back with flax thread. It was the sum total of Mr. 
Marvin’s theological library. Beside it was his ink-horn 
and quill pen. A split-bottomed chair was pushed back 
from the table, and there was another on the other side. 
This was probably where they sat, only night before 
last, when the old man wrote the certificate she was so 
anxious to get. Then her eyes fell upon something on the 
floor that made her forget her fears. 

It was a folded paper. 

Mammy spread it out on the table and scrutinized every 
letter. Then she held it off and viewed it at long range. 
She would have given ten years of her life to have been 
able to read it. But when she had looked it up and down, 
right side and wrong side, from near and from far, she 
announced her conviction. Yaassir ! dat look to me for 
all de world like a stiffkit ! ” It was a clear case of mind- 
reading, for Mammy had never seen a stiffkit.” 

Beverly was resting easier when she got home, and she 
prepared the frugal supper with brightening spirits. Lois 
tiptoed out to see her. The girl had been so much alone 
in all these months that she was glad of the old woman’s 
strength to lean upon ; and with the proof of the marriage 
in her pocket and the pathetic child-face before her. 
Mammy felt the upraised barriers of her heart giving 
way. 

Honey,” she said, taking up the thick corn-meal bat- 
ter and tossing it from one hand to the other till it was 
the desired oval, “ what do a stiffkit look lak? ” 


I 


THE CERTIFICATE 


309 


A stiff what ? ’’ asked Lois. She had been watching 
the operation with fascinated eyes and was thinking of 
the consistency of batter. 

“ A stiffkit. De paper you git dat shows you ’re mar- 
ried.” 

'' Oh-h, you mean a certificate.” 

'' Dat ’s what I said. Do you know what dat look lak? ” 
I never saw one,” said Lois, thoughtfully ; but I 
suppose it ’s a paper saying that two people are married, 
and telling when, and signed with the preacher’s name. 
Oh, yes ; there would be the names of the witnesses, too.” 

'' Would dey be sorter off to deyse’ves ? ” 

Maybe so. I don’t know. Why ? ” 

Oh, nothin’. I was jes’ stud’in’ ’bout it.” 

Mammy set the oven into which she had put her oval 
pones on the hearth, raked the coals under and around it, 
and covered the lid with hot embers. She did it skilfully, 
but the work was i^echanical. Her thoughts were on 
legal documents. Dat ’s a stiffkit, sho’,” she thought. 
But when Lois was eating her supper. Mammy went out 
behind the cabin and drew the paper from her capacious 
pocket, examining it with anxious face. 

'' Here ’s de writin’,” she enumerated ; '' an’ de preach- 
er’s name, I reckon ; an’ off hyeah to deyse’ves is de yether 
two names. I reckon dey ain’ no doubt ’bout its bein’ de 
stiffkit.” 

She had made up her mind on the way home not to 
give it to Lois, nor to say anything about it to anybody 
but Uncle Reuben. Marse Beverly his mind is at res’, 
anyway,” she thought ; an’ Miss Lois is sech a chile she 
jes’ as apt to lose it as any other way. She ain’ got no 
’sponsibility ’bout de importance of dat paper ! She think 
ef Marse Beverly say dey married de whole world ’bleeged 
to believe it 1 No, sir ! I ain’ gwine take no chances. T 
gwine put dat paper whar it ’s safe.” 


310 


ORDER NO. 11 


And before she retired she had placed It in the middle 
of her bed, between the straw tick and the feathers. 

Miss Lois,’' she said the next morning, “ is you ever 
told anybody 'bout you an’ Marse Beverly bein’ mar- 
ried?” 

Not a soul. Mollie Driscoll asked me one day if I 
ever saw Beverly nowadays, and I told her no,— that I 
sometimes saw Gordon Lay when he came down there to 
see father, but I never saw Beverly.” 

'' Humph ! an’ did Marse Gordon ever go down dar to 
see yo’ paw ? ” 

'' No, but I told her that so that if she ever heard of 
any man being around there she would think it was Gor- 
don. I was n’t going to get Beverly into trouble.” 

'' You don’t reckon it would git Marse Gordon in 
trouble, do you ? ” 

'' Why, of course not,” said Lois, in surprise. '' Gor- 
don is a Federal. It would n’t be strange for him to come 
to see father. But Beverly, — anybody would know that 
Beverly was there to see me.” 

Did you ever tell anybody else ’bout Marse Gordon 
goin’ down to yo’-all’s house ? ” 

Lois looked distressed. Mammy’s tone intimated that 
she had done wrong, and Lois was not feeling well and 
could not bear blame. 

I — I think I told Emmons Baird,” she stammered. 
'' He came down to our house to see father last winter, 
and he asked me if I ever saw anything of Gordon Lay, 
and I told him yes, I saw him whenever he came down. 
There could n’t be any harm in that because it was so. 
He had n’t been down but twice, and I saw him both times. 
Emmons Baird said he saw us that time we were talking 
down in the woods. . . . Goodness ! I hope he did n’t see 
me when I got to crying! I look just awful when I 
cry 1 ” 


THE CERTIFICATE 


What was you cryin’ about ? ’’ asked Mammy. She 
was thinking, ''A-ha ! dat ’s de time Reuben seed ’em ! ” 

Why, I had been up to Dn Lay’s for medicine, and 
when I started home Gordon walked part of the way with 
me — as far as he dared; and he was talking with me 
about this very thing and trying to persuade me to give 
it all up till Beverly came home to stay (you see, he 
did n’t know we were married then, but he had had a let- 
ter from Beverly about something), and I told him it was 
too late. And then I was so frightened at what I had said 
that I got to crying. But Gordon was real nice to me, 
only he kept begging me to let him go over and tell Colo- 
nel Trevilian all about it — our being engaged, I mean. 
But I would n’t do it— and he just begged me, too. He 
said he had a good mind to tell, anyway. I think it would 
have been awfully dishonorable in him if he had— when 
he had promised Beverly not to. Don’t you ? ” 

'' Humph ! ” said Mammy. '' Hit would ’a’ been 
mighty sensible.” 

It would have been dishonorable,” persisted Lois. I 
told him so. It was n’t his secret. It was ours.” 

Some things is eve’ybody’s secret,” said Mammy. 

Well, this was n’t. Nobody knew anything about it 
but just ourselves and father and Mr. and Mrs. Mar- 
vin,”— (“ Yaas, an’ two of ’em dead an’ t’other one 
runned away! ” thought Mammy),— '' and Beverly made 
them promise faithfully not to tell it. We just wanted 
it to be a sweet little secret between ourselves. We—” 

“ Go ’long out hyarnder in de yard 1 ” ordered Mammy, 
with a wave toward the door— adding, as Lois looked at 
her in grieved astonishment, an’ git some fresh a’r.” 

She stood, with arms on her hips, a picture of exaspera- 
tion, looking after her as she went. 

'' Look to me sometimes lak she ain’t got de sense of a 
ten-year-ole chile ! ' A sweet little secret ! ’ Humph 1 ” 


CHAPTER XXXV 


THE HEIR COMES TO HIS OWN 


1 the days went by, the fight for Beverly’s life grew 



fiercer. Mammy watched him jealously, and Lois 
forgot how to smile in her anxiety. 

But the odds were against them. Mammy’s skill, re- 
nowned in measles and other infantile complaints 
through which she had successfully carried Beverly, was 
powerless before such tasks as probing for balls, dress- 
ing wounds, and warding off blood-poisoning. Her sim- 
ple remedies were but emollients at best. All that igno- 
rant love could suggest and unskilled devotion execute 
was done, but we know now that the battle is not to the 
loving, but to the learned,— not to her who bathes the brow 
and kisses the parched lips and weeps over the sufferer, 
as did the helpless young wife, but to the one with clear 
head and strong nerve and steady hand who knows how. 
Poor Beverly! 

There were other dangers besides those of unskilled 
nursing to which he was exposed, and these kept them in 
constant dread. 

Roving bands of jayhawkers and bushwhackers still 
played hide-and-seek across the prairies, and while the 
chimneys of Keswick stood as gloomy heralds of the fact 
that the worst had been done here, and the deserted cabins 
had little about them that invited cupidity, there was al- 
ways the plea on one side of looking for lurking guer- 
rillas, and on the other, of seeking needed food. 


THE HEIR COMES TO HIS OWN 313 


The food question usually settled itself. There was 
clearly no hope of forage for man or beast at Keswick. 

The other was not so easily disposed of. If the jay- 
hawkers should get wind that Beverly Trevilian was 
lying helpless on the estate of his father, his chance for 
life would be slimmer even than it was at the hands of his 
nurses. It was Mammy’s constant care to prevent such a 
calamity. Uncle Reuben was kept on guard, and at the 
sight of mounted men instantly gave the alarm. 

His good wife, a woman of rare resources, had two 
charms to conjure with. One was the rebel flag which 
Virginia and Sallie had made in the days when the war 
seemed mainly sewing together the crimson bars and 
singing “ The Bonny Blue Flag,” and talking about the 
glory of it all. The other was a pair of soldier-blue trou- 
sers and a worn jacket discarded by some Kansas man for 
a suit of Beverly’s best. Mammy used them impartially. 
At the alarm of soldiers she always got out both. 

'' Go on down in de bresh, honey,” she would say to 
Lois, who usually stood by in an agony of terror ; “ you 
an’ Reuben ain’t neither of you got any gift at norratin’ 
things ! Git out de way, bofe of you, an’ I ’ll ’ten’ to it. 
Go ’long!” 

Then she would ask anxiously : Which is dey, ole 
man ? Kin you tell ? ” 

Fortunately, the cabin was so situated that they were 
seldom taken by surprise. If it proved to be the Federals, 
by the time they were there the blue trousers would be 
ostentatiously hanging over a chair, while the flag would 
have been relegated to a place under Mammy’s feather- 
tick, a time-honored receptacle for “ colored ” valuables. 

The first time they came Mammy quaked with fear, lest 
Beverly himself should betray the secret. The next time, 
alas ! this danger was past. Beverly was groaning in de- 
lirium. 


3H 


ORDER NO. 11 


The men came in and, of course, wanted to know at 
once who was in the bed. 

Hit 's a soldier wha’ we found down hyarnder in de 
bresh,” was the truthful answer. 

A soldier ? How do you know ? ” 

By his breeches,’’ said Mammy, promptly offering 
them in evidence. '' No, sir ; I don’t know who ’t is, ’cep’n’ 
’t is some po’ Union soldier fightin’ fur his country, an’ I 
could n’ do nothin' but take him in. Do you reckon dey ’ll 
’low me some rations fur it, cap’n ? ” she asked anxiously. 
The man was a corporal. I ’m takin’ mighty good keer 
of ’im, an’ I ’m ’feard it will bring de bushwhackers down 
on me. Look lak de gov’munt might ’low me somethin’ 
fur it.” 

'' Are any of the men missing ? ” asked the corporal of 
his companion. '' I think she ’s lying.” 

Too stupid-looking for that,” answered the man. It 
certainly is a Federal suit.” 

Mammy followed them to the door. ''You-all don’t 
reckon dat ’s a bushwhacker, does you?”— in extreme 
consternation. ■ ‘ My Lord ! I don’t wanter be harborin’ 
no secesh ! . . . I wisht you ’d ast ’em ’bout de rations, 
colonel, please, sir.” No soldier ever had such rapid pro- 
motion as Mammy gave in her haste to propitiate. 

And so that danger was averted. 

No, of co’se I don’t expect ’em to bring me de ra- 
tions,” she said afterward to Uncle Reuben : but dey 
may think dat ’s what I ’m keepin’ ’im fur. Maybe dey 
will.” 

The next day the bushwhackers came — only two— for 
Quantrell’s men had had one of their periodical disband- 
ings. ‘‘ Scattered soldiers,” argued that leader, '' make a 
scattered trail. The regiment that has but one man to 
hunt can never find him.” If only this disbanding could 
have been permanent the country might have had rest, 


THE HEIR COMES TO HIS OWN 315 


but no sooner was the news of the disintegration spread 
abroad than operations began again, and in daredevil 
fashion they were riding through the country, bridles in 
their teeth, a revolver in each hand, and murder in their 
hearts. 

When Mammy knew for sure ’’ that they were not the 
Federals, she thrust the trousers under the bed and laid 
Virginia's little flag near Beverly's hand. To their ques- 
tions she answered : 

‘‘ 'T is some po' rebel soldier I foun' down hyarnder in 
de bresh. No, sir ; I don't know his name. I jes' tuk him 
in fur Marse Beverly's sake. De little flag? Oh, I jes' 
put it dar so 's he could hoi' it. Look lak it ease his min' 
when he 's at hisself. It do so ! " 

One of the men advanced to the bed and looked search- 
ingly at the patient. Poor Beverly was past noticing 
friend or foe that day, and Mammy was at her wits' end. 
If only she could get a doctor! 

'' Why! " he cried,— he lived down in the Snai hills, — 
''this is Beverly Trevilian!" 

" Beverly Trevilian! " exclaimed the other, a mere boy 
to whom Mammy had paid no attention on that very ac- 
count. He went to the bedside of the sick man. 

" Oh, my Lord, young master ! " prayed Mammy in an 
agony of fear, " don't give him up ! He ain' gwineter be 
hyeah long. Let him die in peace ! " 

" Give him up ? " the boy answered. " Give Beverly 
Trevilian up? Well, I reckon not! His mother saved 
my life last summer. Look here, old woman ! " 

He squared himself around before her. " Did n't you 
ever see me before ? " 

Mammy looked at him critically. She had seen so many 
men in the last few years that they had ceased to be of 
interest to her as men. She only noticed the clothes they 
wore and whether they had wagons that could carry any 


3i6 


ORDER NO. 11 


more things off. But as she looked, a light broke v.iver 
her face — the light of recognition. i 

'' Name er God ! Is you dat chile Miss Bettie done nuss j 
thoo a spell er sickness ? ! 

She had never known before that he was a soldier. j 

'' I ’m dat chile, sho’ ! ’’ he said, mimicking her tone ; I 

but he blushed like a girl, for he was at that tender age | 

when a boy of all things wants to be classed as a man. ^ 

“Well, how you is growed!’’ said Mammy. I 

The other man laughed. i 

“ That 's encouraging ! You ’ll be a man yet before 
your mother, Jesse.” 

Then they turned to the bed. 

“ Have n’t you had a doctor for him ? ” asked the man. 

“ No, sir ; dey ain’t no doctors left in de country, I 
reckon.” , 

“ Where ’s that one that attended on me ? ” the boy 
asked. i 

“ Gone to glory ! ” said Mammy. “ Ah-h, Lord ! ” 

Then to her earnest protestations that if there was a < 
doctor left in Jackson County she did n’t know it, the boy 
answered with a man’s determination : 

“ Well, there ’ll be one to-night, or the devil to pay! ” 
And Mammy set hopefully to work preparing bandages. 

She was willing even to work it out with the devil if only 
they could get a doctor. 

That night a well-known physician of Kansas City— 
who may remember the incident, for it was not one likely 
to be forgotten soon— was called from his bed at the muz- 
zle of a revolver, blindfolded, mounted on a swift horse, 
and taken on a mad ride across the prairie, between two 
armed men. The bandage was removed from his eyes 
at Beverly Trevilian’s bedside. 

“ Dress that man’s wound,” he was told, “ and ask no 
questions.” 


THE HEIR COMES TO HIS OWN 317 


When the work was done and medicines and directions 
given to Mammy, the doctor was taken back to the out- 
skirts of Kansas City and released with the caution to 
keep a still tongue in his mouth. 

He ’s going to die,’^ the older one said ; but we Ve 
given him one more chance, poor fellow ! ’’ 

I wish I knew who fired that shot ! '' said the boy. He 
was thinking how fine it was to track a man. 

As the days went by, the three watchers nursed and 
prayed. “ Dat ’s a awful bad sign— pickin’ at de bed- 
clo’es,” said Mammy, shaking her head. An’ did you 
hyeah dat ole houn’ las’ night ? ” 

She said it in an undertone to Uncle Reuben. She had 
grown strangely tender of the young girl who watched 
beside her. 

One day the picking ceased, and Lois, who caught at 
every straw and did not have the older woman’s experi- 
ence, asked if he did not seem quieter. 

Yes,” Mammy said, shaking her head. 

Was n’t that a good sign ? Lois asked anxiously. 
And Mammy turned away. 

There came a day when the cord was loosed, — and the 
mourners went about the place. 

There was nobody in the neighborhood to call upon. 
Even Mr. Collins had fled after the tragedy that brought 
Lois to Keswick. Empty houses only would have echoed 
their cry had they sent it forth. No sign or sound of life 
broke the stillness of that great prairie,— no motion of 
living thing save the flocks of evil birds that circled and 
swooped and battened— on what (shuddering), one dare 
not ask. 

They buried him under the willow that the old man had 
planted so many years ago,— and never was dead laid 
away by gentler hands. The coffin was made from 
charred boards of the house that was to have been his, and 


ORDER NO. 11 


318 

the tears that fell upon it from the old man's eyes were 
more in number than the nails he drove into it. 

It was rudely fashioned. It was hardly fit for a Tre- 
vilian. But they made him a bed of the autumn flowers 
that grew in his mother's garden, and when the faithful 
hands that had robed him on his entrance into life had 
robed him for his solemn exit, they placed him in it and 
laid over his heart the little flag that Virginia had made. 

And so, under the willow, in the six feet of earth that 
we all may claim, amid the flowers that love had planted 
and love had plucked, and with the emblem of the cause 
he had fought for on his breast, the heir of Keswick came 
to his own! 

Ah ! many hopes were buried thus in '63 1 

When it was over they took the young wife back to the 
cabin. There was nowhere else for her to go. They 
never once thought of trying to rid themselves of her — 
these white souls whose skins were black. 

In the gray dawn of the September morning that fol- 
lowed, the two old negroes sat before the embers of the 
open fire. They did not notice that it needed wood, though 
they shivered now and then and their lips were ashen. On 
Mammy's breast, that had pillowed the head of the father, 
lay Beverly Trevilian's infant son. 

And from the room beyond came the babble of a girl- 
ish voice, and a gurgle of laughter now and then that 
chilled the blood ! 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


MAMMY VISITS THE PROVOST-MARSHAL 

I T was weeks after this that Mammy stood one mori. 

ing on the horse-blocks vainly trying to coax the old 
army mule up to a sufficient degree of nearness for her 
to fall upon him, her jumping days being over. The mule, 
casting his remaining eye at her generous girth, prudently 
stepped aside each time at the critical moment. 

Mammy was arrayed in a faded black calico riding- 
skirt and a freshly ironed and slatted sunbonnet which be- 
tokened a journey. Uncle Reuben stood by with a bundle 
of flannel and cambric held gingerly in his arms. They 
never left the child alone one moment, for in the cabin 
.'ts mother still babbled softly and crooned and laughed. 

'' Reuben, lay dat chile down in de grass an’ come 
hyeah an’ take holt dis fool animule! Look lak he ain’t 
never seed a ridin’-skeart befo’ ! ” 

And, indeed, the beast did seem to be in rebellion and 
ready to try his hand with the rest at secession. He 
doubtless felt that the talents of a government employee, 
even though somewhat past his prime, were being put 
to ignoble uses this September morning. 

What you layin’ oE to tell ’em, Dilsey ? ” 

The feat had been accomplished, and Mammy sat tri- 
umphant, a rotund mass, on the back of the subdued Bu- 
cephalus. 

'' How I know what I gwineter say,” asked Mammy, 
gathering up the lines and settling herself in the saddle; 
319 


320 


ORDER NO. 11 


tell I know how fur dey gwine push me ? I don’t never 
tell a story ’dout I have to. But ef dey push me, now—” 
The sentence was unfinished, indicating the wide latitude 
she allowed herself. 

“ Dilsey, I mighty ’feard de devil ’ll git you, some 
day,” said Uncle Reuben, seriously. He greatly disap- 
proved of Mammy’s facile tongue. 

“ Huccome de devil gwineter git me fur tellin’ lies ? ” 
demanded Mammy. Ain’t he de father of ’em ? I 
reckon he can’t deny de trade ! You take keer dat chile,” 
she called back. Ef you don’t, you ’ll think something 
wuss ’n de devil ’s done cotch you ! Dat you will ! ” 

And they plodded on. 

She had got an early start, for the way was long and 
the mule not swift. She was bound for Independence to 
answer a summons to appear before the provost-marshal. 

Of course the summons had not been for her, but for 
her husband as the nominal head of the house, but Mammy 
had more confidence in her own powers of '' norration,” 
as we have seen, than in those of her simple-hearted. God- 
fearing, truth-loving spouse. She determined, therefore, 
to answer the call herself, putting her husband’s failure to 
appear on the ground of rheumatism and consequent ina- 
bility. 

The case of the wounded soldier harbored at their house 
had been reported, and also the fact that he was now miss- 
ing. Their solemn protestation that he was dead was not 
taken as conclusive, and they were required to report at 
the military post. 

They had been thrown into the greatest alarm by the 
summons, for the law in its mysterious operations is an 
awesome thing to children and negroes. On Grand 
Prairie they had become somewhat accustomed to law- 
lessness— they certainly had had fine opportunity to do so. 
But the law!— that was different. 


THE PROVOST-MARSHAL 


321 


The old woman ambled on, looking back from time to 
time at the pitiful little row of cabins which was all that 
was left of the glory of the Trevilian estate. 

'' Hit don't look much lak Keswick ! " she mourned. 

I reckon de feastin'-days is over ! " 

It was a ride to discourage even the stout-hearted, and 
Mammy's soul had been very downcast since Beverly's 
death. On every side were burned fences and blackened 
fields and the ruins of homes. Her progress was marked 
by ejaculations and groans. It was the first time she had 
left Keswick since the church was burned. 

When she came to Dr. Lay's, she rode up to the silent 
house unhindered by fence or gate. She would have got 
down and gone in had she not had the fear of remounting 
beiore her eyes, and also, if the truth were told, a super- 
stitious fear of going into the house whose owner had 
been thrust so violently out of life. Her curiosity got the 
better of her fears, however, and she rode up close to the 
windows of the sitting-room. 

It was a double house upon the orthodox plan,— two 
rooms and a passage above and below. She could easily 
see into the room from her elevation on the mule's back. 
It was dismantled and bare. Nothing was left but a 
large Isabella " stove and the bookcases built in the 
wall. The books were gone. 

She turned the animal's head to the road again, glad to 
get away from the brooding spirit of desolation that lay 
over the place. 

It was after noon when she reached Independence. She 
inquired of a man the way to the provost's office and 
went straight thither. Everybody knew the way to the 
provost in those days. 

Two or three men were in the office when she went in, 
— one of them a fine-looking Federal officer rather in the 
background. He was evidently there more from curiosity 
21 


322 


ORDER NO. 11 


than anything else, and it certainly was an admirable place 
to study human nature and existing conditions. 

Mammy had removed her riding-skirt and bonnet, and 
stood in respectful silence till the provost or his deputy 
or whoever it was should look up. Then she made him 
her best curtsey. 

'' Well,'' said the man, abruptly, '' what do you want? " 
Mammy protested her entire absence of wants, and 
the man asked her name, which she gave, adding the in- 
formation that she belonged to Colonel Trevilian of 
Keswick. 

De soldier said you wanted to see my ole man, sir ; 
an' he was dat po'ly dat I 's 'bleeged to come in his place, 
sir." 

After a few minutes' consultation with the deputy and 
some papers, the provost turned to her. 

You are charged," he said ponderously, ‘‘ with aid- 
ing and abetting the enemy. Is this true?" 

No, sir ! " said Mammy ; hit ain't true ! You hyeah 
my racket, I ain't bettin' on none of 'em. I think de whole 
kit an' bilin' 's half devils ! " 

The officer over by the window looked vastly amused. 
This was a new type to him. Mammy's free-and-easy 
words were without a suspicion of impudence. She was 
only expressing her opinion in her own way. 

Have n't you been caring for a rebel soldier in your 
house ? " she was asked. 

In de cabin, you mean ? Dey ain't no house lef 

Well, the cabin, then. Have n't you? " 

'' Yaassir, I have," Mammy admitted. 

Well, in doing that you have been giving him aid 
and comfort. You acknowledge that? " 

No, sir! I ain't give 'im any aid. I did n' have none 
to give 'im. We ain't got nothin' lef but de ole mule — 
an' he is de mos' ongodlies' ole creetur' ever switched a 


THE PROVOST-MARSHAL 323 


tail ! ’’ she added, recalling his actions at the horse-blocks. 
Then she returned to the accusation. 

Aid an’ comfort ! My Lord ! we-all ain’t had no com- 
fort ourse’ves sence de white folks gone, let alone givin’ 
of it to anybody else. I jes’ nussed ’im, sir; dat ’s all I 
done. I ain’t give ’im no aid an’ comfort ! No, sir ! ” 

'' Who was this man you were harboring ? ” she was 
asked pointedly. 

Mammy hesitated for a brief second.^ It could do no 
possible harm, that she could see, to tell this now, and, as 
she had said, she never prevaricated unless there was a 
reason for it. 

Dat was Marse Beverly Trevilian, sir,” she said 
slowly and impressively ; “ my young master w^ha’ j ’ined 
Price’s army at de beginnin’ of de wah. Yaassir.” 

Well, that ’s what you are charged with— aiding and 
abetting the enemy.” 

Mammy looked at him in unfeigned amazement. 

''You call Marse Beverly de enemy? Humph! Ef 
he ’s de enemy, who in de name er God you gwineter call 
de frien'sf’ 

"Well, who do you call the enemy?” asked the man. 
He had caught the infection of the officer’s quiet amuse- 
ment and was willing to have a little fun with her. 

" I call dem de enemy wha’ ’s doin’ de devilment,” she 
returned promptly,—" killin’ an’ plunderin’, and runnin’ 
off de stock, an’ ’ticin’ off de niggers, an’ — ” 

" Come 1 that will do 1 ” He felt that he had given her 
too much license. " Now I want you to tell me the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” 

" Yaassir, dat>’s what I was gwineter do. But you can’t 
tell de truth ’bout Jackson County— not down our way— 
’dout you bring in de jayhawkers an’ de red-legs. No, 
sir I Dey done worked dey selves into de norration!'' 

" Capital ! ” said the officer in a low tone to another 


324 ORDER NO. 11 

who had joined him. '' That ’s about what they Ve 
done!’’ 

“ Yaassir, dem ’s who I call de enemy. Why, dey burnt 
Marse William’s house, sir, an’ dey tuk de white folk’s 
clothes, dey did, an’ Miss Nannie’s silk dresses, and her 
set of pearls wha’ was gwineter be Miss Figinia’s on her 
weddin’ day.” 

She stopped abruptly and turned to look at the officer 
by the window. 

Look to me lak dat ’s de ve’y one dat tuk ’em,” she 
said. She had observed that the man was laughing at her, 
and was willing to avenge herself. I know ’im by dat 
mole on his face.” 

There was a roar of laughter from the officers, in which 
the suspect joined, and Mammy, with a hardly perceptible 
smile, turned back to the provost. De soldiers called 
’im Lieutenant Tigerman.” 

You ’re off the scent this time, old lady,” spoke up the 
officer. My name is Black.” 

Mammy turned and looked him over silently, the men 
waiting with interest to see the outcome. Then she turned 
back to the group around the provost. 

Yaassir ! A heap of ’em has forsook dey names, but 
look lak you can’t denounce a mole 1 Dat sticks to you 1 ” 

There was another laugh at the officer’s expense, and 
then the provost said sternly : 

'' What was Beverly Trevilian’s business here?” 

I never hyeahed ’im say, sir.” 

'' Do you know ? ” 

No, sir.” 

Where did you find him ? ” 

Down in de bresh.” 

'' Do you mean he was bushwhacking ? ” 

No, sir ; he was layin’ dar, wounded an’ bleedin’ to 
death, when I found ’im.” 


THE PROVOST-MARSHAL 325 

In point of fact, was n’t he going straight to your 
house when he was shot ? ” 

''Yaassir; I reckon he was.” Mammy was serious 
enough now, and so were the others. But what else 
could he do, sir ? ” she asked with simple eloquence. De 
house was burned. His paw an’ maw was drove off. Dey 
wa’n’t no neighbors. Whar could he go, sir, ’cep’n’ ’t was 
to his mammy’s house ? ” 

The provost wrote on without looking up. 

You knew he was a rebel,” he said. Why did you 
take him in ? ” 

Mammy towered above him in a dignity born of the 
occasion. 

“ Why did I take Marse Beverly in ? ” she repeated. 

Why, sir, he was my chile ! When my little Reuben died 
and Miss Bettie was so sick, Marse William give ’im to 
me. I raised ’im, sir. I nussed ’im from dis ole breas’ ! ” 
She struck her bosom with a gesture as dramatic as it was 
unstudied. '' Could I turn ’im off when he was dyin’ ? ” 

The officer turned to his companion with a look of 
wonder on his face. 

It beats the— devil!” he said. Had he come down 
here to loose a people from bonds like this? 

By degrees they got the whole story from her — at least 
so much as she thought best to tell. She said nothing 
about the wife or child. So far as she could find out, no 
living soul knew about this but herself and Lmcle Reu- 
ben. Respect for the family honor more than anything 
else kept her silent about it. She had always felt that 
it was a disgrace. It was not her business, she consid- 
ered, to make it known. 

There were serious faces in that office as she told of his 
death and burial. Beverly Trevilian was known to many 
of them. Of course he was a rebel— but— it was a sad 
end ! 


326 


ORDER NO. 11 


Ef any of you knows whar Marse William is, I wisht 
you ’d try an’ git de word to ’im,” she said as she con- 
cluded, and there was nobody to jest this time. 

Is dey anything to pay, sir ? ” she asked hesitatingly, 
looking much relieved when told there was not. '' ’Cause 
we ain’t got nothin’ but de mule lef’,” she explained; 
'' an’, as I told you, he ’s mighty obnoxious, sir ! ” 

In the laugh that followed she bowed herself out. The 
officer by the window followed her. 

'' Here, old lady ! ” he called. I don’t know your 
name—” 

'' Dilsey, sir; ' Aunt Dilsey ’ dey gen’ally calls me,— de 
young ones, anyway.” 

“ Aunt Dilsey, then.” He spoke it awkwardly, not 
being accustomed to the familiarity of the appellation. 
He put a greenback into her hand. '' Here, take this and 
get yourself something to eat.” 

'' Thanky, sir ! thanky, young master ! ” cried Mammy. 
She did not know why it should be given to her. She 
had done nothing. But that money was a godsend. 

I hope you ’ll ’scuse me, sir, ’bout dat mole. I knowed 
all time you wa’n’t de man. I was jes’ foolin’. You got de 
advantage of dat man in de place yo’ mole done choose 
fur hisse’f. Hisn was on his nose. An’ I reckon you got 
right smart de advantage of him in de fambly you was 
born in, too! I don’t know whether you come f’om ole 
Figinny, sir, but you sho’ly is got de marks of de quality 1 
Yaassir! Dat you is!” 


I 

4 


' ,4 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


A NATION SCATTERED AND PEELED 

I T was the day after Mammy's triumphant return 
from Independence with saddle-bags whose off side 
could hardly hold the sundries into which that greenback 
had been transmuted. 

There was tea for the invalid, who turned away from 
the decoction of sassafras which was the best they had 
to offer, and a precious package of sugar ; there was pare- 
goric for infantile emergencies and colchicum for those of 
age; down in one corner were a paper of needles and a 
spool of cotton. (“ Dat chile gwin^ter need sho^:t dresses 
To' long," Mammy had said ; he 's mighty serzngrous 
in his laigs.") But it cannot be denied that the greater 
part of the saddle-bags— if one may speak of them in the 
plural when the femininity of both saddle and rider had 
made them strictly a one-sided singular— was taken up 
with twists of tobacco for the mutual delectation of the 
old couple. 

It should be said in strict justice, however, that the very 
first purchase of all had been a rubber rattle and a blue 
ribbon to hang it on. A tin one had been offered her, but 
she would none of it. Dat chile ain't no po' white 
trash! " she thought. Dishy eah one is jes' lak de one 
his paw had — po' little lamb 1 " 

Nobody could have told of which '' little lamb " she 
was thinking. Possibly she did not know herself. 

She had been very jubilant over the success of the trip, 
detailing it to Uncle Reuben with the circumstantiality 

337 


328 


ORDER NO. 11 


natural to a traveler who did not often take so long a one. 
The visit to Dr. Lay’s and the discovery of the old '' Isa- 
bella ” had put a new notion in their heads. If they con- 
tinued to keep their new charge — and there seemed no 
possibility of their doing anything else— they would need 
another fire. Uncle Reuben had gone over to see the lay 
of the land literally and ascertain whether the old sled and 
the maligned mule would be equal to transporting it to 
Keswick. If he waited for snow there might be nothing 
to transport. Even stoves were game when nothing else 
was in sight. One such was taken to Pleasant Hill by a 
strolling visitor and returned at the close of the war. The 
borrower said to the owners afterwards that he needed it, 
and then he thought it would be safer in his house than 
in theirs— and he was doubtless right. 

Uncle Reuben had made his observations and was ready 
to start home. It had been a mournful investigation. 
The empty rooms reverberated with the sound of his halt- 
ing steps, — preternaturally loud they seemed in the still- 
ness. Mournful ejaculations fell from his lips and he 
shook his head continually as he went from room to 
room. How often he had driven the white folks through 
that big gate 1 he was thinking as he stood by the window 
and looked out. The gate was gone now— burned with 
the fence. 

He was starting down the stairs when a step below and 
an exclamation startled him. He drew back and peered 
through the balusters. 

A young man in soldier clothes stood in the doorway. 
He was looking into the bare rooms with hard-set face. 
It was Gordon Lay. 

He had landed at Kansas City with his regiment that 
morning. The news of Order No. ii had reached him 
soon after its issue, and he had been in a frenzy of anxiety 
to get tidings of their fate. But the trumpet a soldier 


‘^SCATTERED AND PEELED" 329 


follows is Duty, not Love. He could not leave his 
regiment. 

He had written letter after letter. They lay uncalled for 
in the little post-office. He wrote to his sister in Ken- 
tucky, but her answer failed to reach him, he was shifted 
so from pillar to post. He had asked for a furlough, only 
to be met with the answer that the regiment would 
soon be transferred to the border and he must wait. What 
was one man amid the tumult of war in ’63 ? 

Rumors had come to him that filled him with terror — 
of fleeing refugees, burning houses, and endangered 
women. The butchery at Lawrence he knew was bound 
to bring swift reprisal, and he shuddered to think what 
that reprisal might be, and whom it might strike. Those 
were agonizing days for Gordon. If only he could 
know ! 

When the boat reached Kansas City that morning and 
the regiment was disembarked he went straight to his 
commanding officer and laid the case before him, asking 
leave of absence, if but for a day. It was granted and he 
had come in haste. 

His fears increased with every mile; they had become 
well-nigh insupportable ; he urged his horse to its utmost 
speed. And yet he felt from the first that there was no- 
thing he could do! It was a month or more since the 
order was issued. What might not happen in a month! 
He was hastening only to learn the worst. 

It was indeed a scene of desolation that he looked upon ! 
The fields that he had left in smiling beauty lay blackened 
and waste. There had been few crops raised in the last 
two years ; there were not many able-bodied men left for 
the plow and the harrow— they were busy with the sword 
and the rifle; and the little there was had not been gath- 
ered into barns. 

Gordon Lay was versed in the Scriptures. Throughout 


330 


ORDER NO. 11 


that ride the lamentations of the prophet were sounding 
continually in his ears. He said them over at every turn 
of the road, 

'' The land mourneth ; for the corn is wasted ; . . . the 
harvest of the field is perished.’' . . . '' Alas for the 
day!” 

Here and there, as he looked across the prairie, a zig- 
zag line of ashes told where a fence had been ; the black- 
ened swath on either side showed where it had gone. It 
did not matter much now about the fences. There were 
no crops left for the brute creation to ravage, and no 
stock to do it had there been. The fields were in briers 
and thistles. The stock was in Kansas. 

On every hand Gordon saw with sinking heart the ruins 
of homes,— here a prostrate mass of brick and mortar that 
had once been a rendezvous for the gayest of the gay; 
there, two stone chimneys which measured the breadth of 
the house that was, and stood like grim sentinels to chal- 
lenge attention and herald the fact that here a household 
once lived and loved, and toiled and gathered— and lost. 

They were not always recent ruins. Sometimes they 
would have vines over them— a fragrant climbing honey- 
suckle that was not quite buried when the crash came, or 
the old grape-vine that had covered the back porch and 
tried to do its duty still, creeping over the unsightly pile, 
and budding and blossoming and bearing fruit. At any 
rate, it made a shadow from the heat for the lizard and 
the slug. How could it know in its insensate heart that 
the soul of that home was gone and only its bleaching 
bones were to be sheltered henceforth? 

There seemed to Gordon something infinitely pathetic 
in the sight of the summer-houses and grape-arbors, more 
even than in the wasted fields. Such things speak so of 
human life and its joys. Once he noticed what had been 
a child’s swing, the rope cut as high as a man’s hand could 


-SCATTERED AND PEELED" 331 


teach and the ends dangling from the limbs of the walnut 
tree. Under it was the path worn bare by little feet. 
The rope had been used to tie up the bedding that went 
to Kansas. Where were the children? 

Occasionally he would see houses that the torch had 
failed to find, or, more merciful than its fellows, had 
spared. He rode up to some of them. They were always 
empty. Where were the people? 

Often there were signs of recent occupation,— an ax 
sticking in a log at the wood-pile, a basket of chips gath- 
ered and left; and he noticed frequently at the horse- 
blocks children's bulky playthings that had been brought 
out in the forlorn hope of taking them along, and aban- 
doned as impossible, apparently, before starting. In one 
place was a little red cart. Surely that might have been 
taken ! He did not know that that family went out as the 
Holy Family took their flight into Egypt, the mother on a 
mule, with the weeping owner of the cart in her lap, while 
the aged grandfather walked at their side. If only the 
cart could have carried the baby, it might have gone 
along. 

As he drew nearer home, Gordon's gloom deepened. 
These places were all familiar to him; each one had its 
memories, and they were all a young man's memories — 
bright and joyous. It did not seem to him that they could 
ever be the abode of anything happy again. Joy seemed 
blotted out of the world. 

The chimney sentinels grew thicker. He remembered 
Virginia's writing to him that she had stood on the por- 
tico at Keswick one night and counted twenty burning 
buildings. It had seemed incredible. He could believe it 
now. The chimneys corroborated the story. 

He raised himself in the saddle and drew in a long 
breath, exhaling it with a sudden, explosive force. The 
vast stillness oppressed him. It was broken only by his 


332 


ORDER NO. 11 


horse’s hoofs. There was not a sound, not a sign of life 
on all that broad prairie. 

It was a relief to him to pass through a stretch of tim- 
ber and hear a blue-jay. Something was alive, anyway. 
A squirrel ran out on the limb of a tree, with its tail 
whisked over its back in the old familiar fashion. Gor- 
don looked at it with a strange feeling of interest. He 
and Beverly used to go hunting for squirrels. How had 
he ever been so cruel as to shoot one? He felt the 
remorse of the Ancient Mariner wheu 

With his cruel bow he laid full low 
The harmless Albatross.” 

He had never realized before how much the bark of 
dog, the lowing of the herd, and all the common barn-yard 
sounds gave cheer and tone to country scene. Even the 
discordant cry of the peacock or the guinea-hen would 
have .sounded sweet. There was such a polar stillness 
over everything! It chilled his soul. 

He pressed on. From the hill just beyond he knew he 
could see Virginia’s home and his own. His heart was 
beating a tattoo that made him forget the stillness. It had 
been so long since he had seen her 1 

When he reached the hill he stopped short. A groan 
burst from his lips. The white pillars, streaked with 
smoke, were outlined against the blue sky. 

He looked to the right. His own home was standing. 
Thank God for that ! But would there be anybody there ? 
After all he had this day seen, he did not dare to hope it. 

When he reached the house he flung his bridle over the 
post, half expecting to see a negro boy come shambling 
from the rear. None came. He strode to the open door, 
with some wonder that it should be open. He did 
not know that it was better thus than locked, for then it 


‘‘SCATTERED AND PEELED" 333 


would surely be battered in. He stopped on the thresh- 
old. One glance told him the worst. They were not 
there. 

He went through it room by room. The parlor had 
with wanton vandalism been used for stabling horses. 
The walls of tinted lavender were covered with obscene 
writing and pictures. The floors bore evidence of having 
been hastily dismantled, for the straw was left and there 
were tags of carpeting where it had been torn up. There 
was nothing left but the old “ Isabella.’’ 

Uncle Reuben had taken the opportunity, when the 
newcomer had gone to the back rooms, to tiptoe softly 
down the stairs. He had not recognized Gordon, and he 
had learned from bitter experience that while loneliness is 
bad, objectionable neighbors are worse. He proposed to 
leave this prowling young soldier in full possession. Slip- 
ping behind a rose-bush, he awaited his opportunity to 
retire unobserved. 

He was too late. There was the click of a revolver, and 
Gordon stepped boldly to the other side of the rose-bush. 
Bushes had a way of yielding strange fruit in those days. 
He would see what this was. 

At sight of the old man his hand dropped. 

“Uncle Reuben! Why-” 

“ My Lord in heaven 1 Hit ’s Marse Gordon 1 Well, 
Marse Gordon, I cert’n’y is glad to see you, sir! I is, 
indeed!” 

“ Where did you come from ? ” demanded Gordon. 

“ F’om Keswick, sir. De cabins ain’t burnt. Hit ’s de 
house.” 

“Tell me about the family! Where are they?” 

“ You mean our fambly, sir? ” 

“ Yes, and mine, too. Where are they all? ” 

“ Dey gone, sir ! ” 

“ Where ? Where is my father ? ” 


334 


ORDER NO. 11 


Uncle Reuben’s jaw dropped and his face grew ashen. 
He stared at the young man with dilating eyes. 

Marse Gordon, sir ! ain’t you hyeahed ? ” 

Heard ? No ! I have heard nothing ! Where is my 
father ? ” 

The old man stood with bowed head. Then, with a 
gesture toward the heavens, smiling blue and serene above 
them as if from that far height they looked down upon no 
sin and sorrow, he said solemnly: 

‘ Whar de wicked cease f ’om troublin’, an’ de weary is 
at rest.’ ” 

My God!” 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


GORDON TAKES THE HELM 


M y GOD! 

It was the cry lifted up on Calvary. It has been the 
outpouring of stricken hearts ever since. It filled the air 
in ’63, — where the cannon clashed and the battle raged, 
and at home next day when the lists were read. It fell 
from the lips of beardless boys who had not got away from 
their mothers^ God ; it rose from hearts unused to pray ; it 
was wrung often— oh, so often!— from anguished ones 
kneeling by empty beds ! 

My God ! 

It is the souks instinctive appeal for help, in danger, 
in bereavement, from the terror that cometh by night 
and the arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walk- 
eth in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noon- 
day. Whether we trust or whether we scoff, it is all the 
same. When extremity comes, we feel a need that reaches 
out and up. We were strong, but now we are weak— and 
all alike we pray : 

My God ! 

It is humanity’s cry in the dark. 

Uncle Reuben’s tale was one little calculated to reassure 
the bereaved son. He felt more and more his mother’s 
need of him. And where was she ? Where were they all ? 

On this point the old man, graphic and reliable as he 
was on what he knew, was at fault. Geography was a 


335 


336 


ORDER NO. 11 


sealed book to him. To all of Gordon’s questions and en- 
treaties he could only say : 

Marse Gordon, sir, I been chastisin’ my memory to 
think of dat place, but I ’ve clean forgot de name ! ” 

Think hard ! ” Gordon urged. Was it St. Louis? ” 
No, sir. Don’t look lak dat was de name.” 

It was n’t Kansas City ? ” 

'' No, sir ! ” Uncle Reuben repudiated this thought 
with scorn. He did know that Kansas City was to the 
west. Dey tuk de Lexington road.” 

Could it have been Kentucky ? ” He felt sure that 
his mother would go straight to his married sister in 
Kentucky, hence his main anxiety now was to get the 
destination of the Trevilians. 

Uncle Reuben shook his head. 

‘‘ No, sir ; dat wa’n’t de town. Seem lak I hyeahed 
somethin’ about yo’ maw goin’ dar, but not Marse Wil- 
liam. No, sir ! ” 

Gordon mentioned several possible places. He really 
had very little idea what point Colonel Trevilian would 
be likely to select. His kindred were all in Virginia, 
but of course he had not gone there. 

Uncle Reuben was thinking deeply. Marse Gordon,” 
he said with a gleam of hope, '' you don’t reckon dat place 
could ’a’ been Charlottesville ? ” 

Gordon turned away in despair. 

They went over to the cabin, and on the way Uncle 
Reuben unfolded to him the other sad tale, of Beverly 
and Beverly’s wife and child. For a part of this he was 
partially prepared, but the death of his friend was a 
blow, as was Lois’s condition. 

She jes’ lays dar talkin’ to herself an’ singin’ sorter 
low like to de rag baby wha’ Dilsey done made her. She 
don’t know dat ain’t a sho’-’nough chile. No, sir I Why, 
Marse Gordon, she tries to nuss itl ” 


GORDON TAKES THE HELM 337 


When Mammy saw Gordon her joy knew no bounds. 
She immediately slipped from her bent shoulders to his 
strong ones the burden she had been carrying. She was 
not much accustomed to responsibility of a grave sort, 
having all her life had questions settled for her. Neces- 
sity had pressed it upon her in these latter days, but at the 
sight of a white face she transferred it promptly, defer- 
ring to his judgment in all things. 

They took him in to see the girl. She was propped up 
in bed, her golden hair falling about her like a sunlit 
cloud, and her face beautiful as he had never seen it — an 
etherealized beauty that smote his heart. Poor Beverly! 

She looked at him with unrecognizing glance. When 
he took her hand and spoke, a troubled look came into 
her eyes, as if sleeping memories had been stirred, and 
she lifted the grieved chin of a child to him. 

Will Beverly come to-day ? ’’ 

He turned away. He could not trust himself to speak. 

It was with strange sensations that he stood beside the 
mite of humanity that lay in Mammy's lap, which they 
told him was Beverly Trevilian’s child. A great wave of 
pity swept over him. This little one had come into life 
heavily freighted. Without much thought, he held out 
his finger to the tiny hand. It closed upon it instantly. 
It is a trick babies have of worming themselves into peo- 
ple's hearts. It thrilled the man like an appeal. 

Beverly's child! 

And Beverly had never seen it! It would never know 
a father's care, nor— 

A low sound came to them from the other room— the 
soft croon of a cradle-song to the tune of Come, thou 
fount of every blessing." 

Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, 

Holy angels guard thy bed." 


338 


ORDER NO. 11 


She ’s puttin’ de rag chile to sleep/’ whispered 
Mammy. '' She does dat c(?nstant.” 

Gordon’s strong hand closed around the helpless one 
that clutched his finger. Poor little orphan ! Fatherless 
and motherless ! 

'' Marse Gordon,” said Mammy, looking down anx- 
iously into the wrinkled face, does you see de favor of 
Marse Beverly in dis chile? Seem to me he looks mo’ 
lak Miss Lois’s folks den he do lak his own folks ! ” 

From his two humble friends — for they were drawn 
close together now by a comrtTon sorrow and a common 
interest— Gordon heard all the details,— the sack of Kes- 
wick, the exodus, and, later, Beverly’s sickness and death. 
The only place where their memories failed was at the 
destination of the families. This is not to be wondered 
at. Uncle Reuben and Mammy were like unlettered chil- 
dren. To them there were two places in the world— Mis- 
souri and Figinny,”— or, more specifically, Jackson 
County and Albemarle. 

And, then, such a flood of calamities had come upon 
them in the last few weeks it is not strange that an un- 
known name should have been swept away. But it made 
Gordon’s search infinitely harder. 

Dilsey,” said Uncle Reuben at length, is you done 
forgot dat paper ? ” 

Mammy put the baby into Gordon’s arms before he 
could either retreat or enter a protest. 

Hyeah, Marse Gordon, take dis chile ! You got to 
learn how sometime ! ” 

He held it gingerly, afraid to move lest he should 
break it, afraid to stir lest it should cry, watching its 
little wrinkled, puckery face with a strange fascination. 
Beverly’s child! 

Mammy turned back the corner of her feather-bed and 
drew forth a package. 


GORDON TAKES THE HELM 339 


Gordon put the baby into Uncle Reuben’s arms and 
turned to her. 

Here ’t is, Marse Gordon— here ’s de stiffkit.” 

The marriage certificate ? ” he cried. “ Oh ! what a 
help! Where did you get it? I was afraid they might 
not have one.” 

Mammy related with pardonable pride the story of how 
it was lost and found. Yaassir 1 ” she said exultantly ; 
'' I was boun’ to have dat stiffkit ! I wa’n’t gwineter let 
nobody take away dat chile’s mess of potash ef I could 
help it 1 No, sir I ” 

Gordon took the paper, smiling at her words. A mar- 
riage certificate would straighten things out wonderfully 
in years to come. As he read, his smile faded. 

“ Is it all right, Marse Gordon?” asked Mammy, anx- 
iously. 

'' No, Mammy,” he said — and he said it with great gen- 
tleness ; “ it is not the certificate at all. It is a receipt.” 

Mammy dropped into a chair. Then, as the full force 
of it came to her, she turned to Uncle Reuben. “ Gimme 
de chile,” she said brokenly. Po’ lamb ! . . . po’ 
lamb ! ” 

Gordon had not the heart to tell her what the paper 
that she had been guarding with such jealous care was. 
It was a receipt for half-soling a pair of shoes, dated in 
Arkansas, and drawn up in Beverly’s writing. The con- 
sideration mentioned in the document for the service ren- 
dered was one hundred and fifty dollars, Confederate 
money. It was signed : 

his 

Joel X Crawford 
mark. 

In the corner at the left hand were the names of two 
witnesses, John Pasco and Ike Swamscott, and after the 


340 


ORDER NO. 11 


latter name was scrawled : High private in the rear 
ranks.” 

Gordon could see the whole scene— the hilarity with 
which the receipt had been demanded, and given, and 
duly witnessed,— and how it had been preserved to laugh 
over afterward. The contrast between that scene and 
this seemed almost ghastly. 

Uncle Reuben picked up the package. 

'^Dilsey done forgot de letters,” he said, and Beverly 
took them. 

Marse Gordon,” Mammy interrupted, — she would 
not give it up yet,— ain't dey some sorter book whar de 
marriages an' taxes an' things is wrote down ? ” 

Yes, but you know. Mammy, things have been in such 
a state in this part of the country that everything has gone 
to pieces. There are no county officers now, and even 
the books are gone. I 'm afraid we will have to give it 
up.” 

He took the letters— there were two of them— written 
by Beverly Trevilian when the sands of life were running 
low. One was to his father— the other to Gordon. 

You take 'em both, Marse Gordon. I don't know 
what to do wi' dat letter. You git it to Marse William 
when you find out whar dey is. I done promise Marse 
Beverly.” 

Gordon took the letters and rose. The very sight of 
them stirred him. He could not read his here. 

He went to the willow beneath whose shade he and 
Beverly had so often lain and talked and planned the 
future. They used to go there sometimes to play mum- 
ble-peg.” The place was full of surging memories to 
him, as indeed what spot about Keswick was not? 

Standing by the mound where the other one lay, he 
read the letter. It was written on a leaf torn from a note- 
book and was short. The writing faltered at the last and 


GORDON TAKES THE HELM 341 


grew shaky. It seemed to him like a message from the 
other world. 

Dear Gordon/’ it said, '' I am almost gone. Mammy 
tries to make me think I shall get well, but I know to-day 
I never shall. I wish I could!— oh, how I wish I could! 
for the sake of the little girl who is sitting by me — my 
wife. You were right in what you said that day, Gordon. 
I ought n’t to have married her till the war was over. 
But— I did; and then, when she wrote me— I couldn’t 
stay away. I had to come! But it brought me to my 
death. Gordon, will you take care of her until you can 
find father? I have written to him, but we don’t know 
where he is. I know you will be sure to come back here, 
and I ’m writing this to leave for you. It ’s hard to go ! 
but — you ’ll take care of her, won’t you, Gordon? We ’ve 
fought on different sides, but I know you ’ll forget that 
for the sake of old times.” 

The word straggled off across the page, as if the hand 
had failed. Then the writing began again— there was 
something else that must be said. 

“ Tell mother it ’s all right with me. Good-by.” 

It had no signature. It did not need any. 

Gordon stood motionless. A swaying pendant touched 
his cheek. When it swept back, the willow leaves were 
wet. He caught the branch and held it with a grip such 
as he might have given a hand. 

‘‘ Bev, old fellow ! ” . . . The boyish name slipped 
from him unawares. They seemed very close to each 
other then— the living and the dead. He looked up to the 
skies and raised his right hand. His lips were firm-set. 

So— help me— God! ” he said. 


342 


ORDER NO. 11 


That night Gordon Lay sat out on the horse-blocks, 
where he and Virginia and Mrs. Trevilian used to sit 
studying the stars. He was not doing that now. He 
was trying to think it out. 

Lois needed care— medical care. That was the first 
thing. If her malady were taken in time, it might be 
cured. He was physician enough to know that every day 
lessened this probability. If he waited to hear from Colo- 
nel Trevilian before moving in the matter, it might be 
too late. What ought he to do? 

Then, even if he should be immediately successful in 
the search which he intended to institute, was it not 
likely that his letter would find Colonel Trevilian in no 
financial condition to meet this new obligation,— perhaps 
even in no physical condition, after all he had been 
through, to make such a trying journey. There was 
no question that she ought to be taken to the asylum. 
This was no place for her, certainly. Ought he not to 
do it? 

There was no thought in his mind that the thing would 
have a sinister appearance, — he would not have harbored 
it had there been. Beverly had left her to his care until 
his father should be found. There was nobody else, to 
take the responsibility. Mammy, even, could not be 
spared to go with them. There was nothing to do but for 
him to take her to Fulton. 

This settled, his thoughts turned to Virginia and his 
mother. His own family, he felt sure, would go directly 
to Kentucky. He would write immediately to his sister 
there, making inquiries, and would send a letter to Vir- 
ginia for Sallie to forward. Of course Sallie would know 
where they were, and it would save time. It would be 
ten days or two weeks then before he could hope for a 
reply. But when he did — 

He went off then into a blissful reverie, from which he 


GORDON TAKES THE HELM 343 


stirred himself at last to go to the pallet that Mammy had 
spread for him in the loom-house. 

He told them of his plan the next morning. It was not 
questioned except as to the possibility of it. 

“ I thought de ’sylum had been shut up endurin' of 
de wah," Mammy said. She had heard them tell of its 
being closed by order of Governor Jackson early in ’61, 
that the bedding might be used for the soldiers. She re- 
membered it because of the talk it made when the patients 
were sent back to their respective counties, to their homes 
and the poorhouses and jails. 

“ It has just been reopened," Gordon answered. How 
soon could she go ? " 

'' I reckon she could go mos’ any time. I 'm jes' keepin' 
her in de bed 'cause dat seem lak hit 's de safes' place 
fur 'er." 

'' Get her clothes ready, then, and as soon as I can get 
leave of absence I will take her down." 

Marse Gordon, you ain't gwine take little Beverly, 
is you ? " Mammy spoke anxiously. She had named the 
child herself. 

You can have the baby until we hear from Colonel 
Trevilian. I think he belongs to you by good right. He 
certainly could n't be in better hands. I 'll send the cow 
down as soon as I get to Kansas City." 

“Yaassir; ef you please, sir. Look lak ole Star ain't 
gwine hold out tell his little toofies come." 

Mammy had adopted another generation. 

And so one day they put the gentle, sweet-faced girl, with 
her belongings, in a carriage, and Gordon drove her to the 
station, where they took the train for Fulton. Mammy 
had made her a fresh '' rag chile," and dressed it in a 
real baby dress and shawl and cap for the journey. It 
seemed the last thing she could do for her. 


344 


ORDER NO, 11 


The girl had fallen into a settled melancholy now, and 
hugged the baby to her and wept softly as they rode in 
the cars, Gordon watching her from his seat behind. He 
spoke to her occasionally, but she would only shake her 
head and weep afresh. 

Who is it you Ve got there ? ’’ asked a man he met on 
the train. The man had known Gordon in the old neigh- 
borhood. 

Nobody that you know, I think,'' Gordon said briefly. 
‘‘ It is a lady I am taking to a place of safety. Jackson 
County is no place now for any woman that can get 
away." 

He did not care to enlighten the man, who was a gar- 
rulous gossip, despite his sex. 

The girl was young and beautiful. The man looked at 
the trio and drew his own conclusions. He repeated 
them afterward as facts. It is a way we have of carrying 
on the devil's work! 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


FORTY YEARS AGO 


ORDON LAY was sitting in the low-ceiled bare re- 



VJ ception-room of the State Lunatic Asylum. In 
front of him was the mild-mannered, sharp-eyed super- 
intendent of that institution, who always saw to the bot- 
tom of things through or over his spectacles. 

It was his business to ask questions, and he was a past 
master in the art. When that conference came to an end, 
Gordon felt that he had been on the witness-stand. 
Many another has felt the same way. But the mild- 
mannered gentleman’s questions were always pertinent, 
if searching, and the lowliest was accorded courteous 
treatment. A rare man was Dr. T. R. H. Smith. The 
State’s unfortunates could not have fallen into better 
hands. 

Poor Lois had been taken in charge by the kind- 
hearted matron, who had recently been installed and was 
so new to the business that her heart bled for every ar- 
rival, and they were very frequent just now. From the 
remotest borders of the State came pouring back the for- 
lorn ones. If anybody is in doubt of the insane-asylums’ 
being the best fruit of an advanced civilization, let him 
witness the closing of one for two years and the re- 
opening. 

The girl had shown no feeling at parting with Gordon, 
but hugged to her breast the doll. 

You say you cannot certify this marriage?” the 
superintendent was saying. 


345 


346 


ORDER NO. 11 


No, sir. I have only the word of my friend in the 
letter he left me.” 

'' You could not get a certificate of marriage from the 
minister who performed the ceremony ? ” 

No, sir;— not at present. He left the county, as 
everybody else did, under Order No. ii, and I have no 
means of knowing where he is.” 

'' Do you know that he is alive ? ” 

No, sir.” 

You do not even know that Colonel Trevilian will 
receive her as his daughter ? ” 

'' No, sir ; but—” 

'' Yes. Just a moment. Suppose he should repudiate 
this marriage and decline to burden himself with the 
young woman’s support, what would you wish us to do? 
Is she then to be turned over to the county ? ” 

I should not wish her to be put upon the county,” 
Gordon said firmly. She is my dead friend’s wife. 
Until she is recognized by her husband’s family, you may 
look to me for her support.” 

Ah ! ” The superintendent lowered his head and 
looked at the young man over his glasses. His face was 
inscrutable, but Gordon flushed under his gaze. 

“ I hardly feel that we would be justified. Lieutenant 
Lay, in receiving this young woman under the name of 
Trevilian. She will be entered as Miss Lois Chandler. 
The change of name can be made at any time that Colonel 
Trevilian directs it.” 

And so poor Lois was denied, even in a lunatic asylum, 
the poor dignity of her matron’s title and her husband’s 
name. 

In the time that had intervened between his visit to 
the old neighborhood and his trip to Fulton, Gordon had 
made haste to communicate with his sister, and had had 
the cheering assurance that his mother, Mrs. Devereau, 


FORTY YEARS AGO 


347 


and Sallie were safe under her roof. She did not know 
about the Trevilians. On his return to Kansas City, he 
found a letter there from his mother. At the close of it 
she said : 

“We have just found out where the Trevilians are. 
When we left them at Lexington, where we took the boat 
for St. Louis, they expected to go to Booneville, and w^e 
wrote there as soon as we got to Kentucky. We could 
not imagine why we did not hear from them. It seems 
that they changed their plans and went on to Jefferson 
City, where they now are.^’ 

Gordon ground his teeth. Why had n’t he known this 
before his trip to Fulton? He had passed through Jeffer- 
son City twice — going and coming. The last time he had 
been there a day and night ! His mother continued : 


“ Gordon, Virginia Trevilian is the bravest girl I ever 
saw. I don’t know what we should have done without her 
on that fearful journey. And do you know, she walked 
all the way to Lexington ? Of course her father did, too, 
for that matter, but such things are hard on a woman. 
We went very slowly, having nothing but the calves to 
the cart, and one old worn-out army horse that sister and 
Sallie rode time about (it wouldn’t carry double, and, 
really, I don’t think it would have been able to). I 
wanted Virginia to let me walk sometimes while she took 
my place in the cart, but she would n’t hear to it. I really 
think she felt that she must be near her father. He was 
in a dreadful state the night Keswick was burned. He 
just feeemed to give up. Oh, my son, we have lived 
through frightful scenes ! I pray God, the end may come 
soon! When I think of all we have passed through in 


348 ORDER NO. 11 

Jackson County, I wonder we are not more of us in the 
lunatic asylum! 

'' On the way down we all tried to help each other, and 
be as cheerful as we could. But it was easier for Virginia 
and Sallie than for those of us who are older,— though 
Miss Nannie did say she caught Virginia crying once — 
just for a few minutes.’’ 

Gordon wrote to Virginia that night, explaining that he 
had been through Jefferson City but did not know they 
were there. He did not tell her his business. 

The next day he wrote to Colonel Trevilian, telling 
Beverly’s sad story and his own action in regard to Lois. 
This letter took more time than the one to Virginia, for 
the story must be tenderly told. He inclosed in it the 
one Beverly had written, and mailed it. Then he sat 
down to wait with such patience as he could command. 

The stock was not large, it must be admitted. He was 
in a fever of anxiety to know how they were faring. 
Even the little glimpse his mother had given him of her 
made her dearer to him. She was brave! and his mo- 
ther loved her already. It would be hard to break Vir- 
ginia’s spirit, he thought with a throb of pride. 

Letters came promptly from Kentucky, but he looked 
in vain for a Jefferson City postmark. He went to the 
office three times a day, though he knew the third time 
would be fruitless, unless they had overlooked it. When 
our friends fail us, we always revile the postmaster. The 
Missouri Pacific had not reached Kansas City yet, and 
the mail had to be brought from the terminus in the old 
way, except that a citizens’ guard ” had been added. 

There were people in the town that he knew, and he 
might have spent his leisure time with them, but he felt 
no inclination for society. Instead, he put in his time, 
when he was off duty, in tramping up and down the hills 


FORTY YEARS AGO 


349 


that are now Kansas City, in threading the ravines that 
later gave direction to her thoroughfares, and strolling 
aimlessly over the Kaw bottom, checkered to-day with 
a labyrinth of tracks and switches and railroad yards, 
alive with cars from the four corners of the earth, and 
puffing locomotives that switch and snort and make night 
hideous with their groans and seem to be entirely out of 
their head. It was virgin bottom then. 

Sometimes he would clamber like a goat up the bluff 
overlooking all this, where the squatters^ cabins perch 
like Swiss chalets on shelving terraces and one half ex- 
pects to hear an Alpine horn and see the chamois leap 
from cliff to cliff. 

Then, wearied out with the steep climb, he would sit 
on the brink of the precipice that is now Belleview Ave- 
nue, and from that unrivaled point of vantage look out 
upon the '' world and all the kingdoms of it stretched 
below him— the endless plain covered with sunflowers, 
and the great river which makes an elbow here and then 
flows on, turbid and raging sometimes and full of fierce 
power, slashing into fruitful farms and undermining the 
sycamores till at last they drop helplessly into its insati- 
able maw, but oftener so weary and tired of it all that it 
has not strength or decency to cover its own bare bones, 
which stretch out in long lines of treacherous sand-bar. 

As he sat looking at all this, of what was Gordon 
thinking ? 

Of Thomas Benton, Missouri’s great prophet, who, 
with packing-houses and factories and grain-elevators 
and teeming railroad stations pictured on the retina of 
his far-seeing eye, while yet they were not, had said : 
'' This will be the site of a great commercial and manu- 
facturing community some day ” ? 

No. 

Of John C. Fremont, who, after treading many pas- 


350 


ORDER NO. 11 


sages and opening many doors, had declared : This is 

the key to the immense territory to the west of us ’’ ? 

Not at all ! He was thinking of Virginia and whether 
it was time for the mail to be in. 

Sometimes he would stroll down the levee, looking at 
the signs, many of which bore Spanish and French 
names, for the Santa Fe trade had been a power in west- 
ern Missouri, and its outfitting posts had crept westward 
year by year from Old Franklin to Booneville and Fort 
Osage and Liberty and Independence, and finally to its 
natural place — Kansas City. The old levee had been a 
busy place in those palmy days. If its business life was 
crowded into the narrow space under the bluff, it was but 
concentrated, and made up in intensity what it lost in 
breadth. 

Those were the days when it was worth while to live 
in a river town, with a great fleet of steamboats and 
packets and barges and flat-boats and river craft of every 
sort gliding endlessly by. The old Missouri was teeming 
with life then. Palatial steamboats, with gaily dressed 
ladies sitting on the guards, and bands and calliopes 
playing, plowed the muddy waves and missed the sand- 
bars when they could. The names of boats and captains 
were as household words. They vied with one another 
then in bed and board, and people tell yet of the tables 
they set, and how the Missouri River water is the best 
water in the world — when it has settled! 

In the fifties the boats came in loaded to bursting from 
hold to hurricane deck— horses and wagons, cattle and 
mules below, furniture and household goods piled high 
aloft, and humanity sandwiched in between. The West 
was taking on a great impetus then— the wilderness was 
stretching out its hands, and even the buffaloes were 
ready to be stripped. 

When the boat came in then people went down to the 


FORTY YEARS AGO 


351 


landing to meet it and see the newcomers. It was the 
great commercial mart. There was drumming to be done 
for the hotels^ real-estate agencies, and outfitting houses. 
It was the popular recreation to go there. It took the 
place of golf-links and football-grounds. 

Yes, a busy place was the levee from ^55 to ’61. The 
new town was the natural distributing-point for Kansas. 
Kansas emigrants with nasal twang and sparse belong- 
ings looked with faith to the promised land beyond the 
Kaw, and border ruffians glared at them from under 
broad-brimmed hats ; negro stevedores went back and 
forth over the gangway and emptied the steamboat's load 
wherever a place could be found for it,— and often the 
place was under the canopy of heaven instead of the roof 
of the warehouse ; swaggering, roistering '' bullwhack- 
ers," as the Santa Fe drivers were called, strode up and 
down, cracking their whips and crying to their oxen and 
mules in Spanish, French, or Choctaw, as the case might 
be. 

A busy scene, indeed, was the levee in the fifties. But 
Gordon found no difficulty in getting through it now. 
The great pulsing heart seemed stricken with paralysis. 

He went on down by the old Gillis house, still standing, 
but given yp to water-rats. It had been headquarters for 
the free-State men in the stormy days of the border 
quarrel. It had sheltered Governor Reeder when his life 
was sought, and he escaped from it in the disguise of a 
wood-cutter, so says the chronicle. 

He noticed, as he looked idly around, the name of F. 
X. Aubrey, and remembered the story he had heard from 
his father's lips of F. X. Aubrey'e mad ride from Santa 
Fe to Independence, a distance of eight hundred miles. 
He smiled as he recalled it. It seemed to be proof that 
what a man must do he can. F. X. Aubrey wagered ten 
thousand dollars that he could make it in six days, and 


352 


ORDER NO. 11 


found takers. He did it in five and a half. Then he said 
he could do it in four days, and they bet him twenty 
thousand dollars he could n’t. He rode into Independence 
at the end of three days and a half! 

They did not erect triumphal arches in those days, but 
he had a boat named for him. That was the way they 
sounded a great man’s praises in the West. 

Business was leaving the levee before the war. Ten 
years before, in fact, it had outgrown these narrow limits 
and a few venturesome spirits had sought locations on 
the hills. A start once made, others followed, and it was 
not long until the levee was given up to wholesale houses 
and shipping interests. 

The city was creeping up the ravines which have since 
been named Main Street and Market Street (or Grand 
Avenue, as it now calls itself). In the days when it was 
a ravine road, a thoroughfare only for the Santa Fe 
trains, it was content — nay, proud — to be Market Street, 
for Market Street ” had a metropolitan sound to people 
who picked their own wild greens and cured their own 
bacon, and raised the corn that was to make the dump- 
lings,” even, in blissful hope of a market some day. An 
avenue had not come into their wildest dreams, — cer- 
tainly not a boulevard ! for they still climbed the hills from 
Market gorge to Main Street ravine, and thence to Broad- 
way gulch, with difficulty, hoping only for cross-cuts 
some day that would make life a little less arduous. 

It is a pity that everybody in the country could not 
have had one view of this town of dogged determination 
when it was getting itself made! It would have been a 
lesson to the timid builder of cities— an eye-opener as to 
the relative importance of site and topography. 

Strangers holding on to their breath and their scalps 
as they go up the steep grades of the Ninth Street cable, 
or down the hair-raising descent of the viaduct leading to 


FORTY YEARS AGO 


353 


the Union Depot, are wont to remark with chattering 
teeth that Kansas City is rather hilly; but to the old set- 
tler who remembers it in the days of its youthful angu- 
larities it seems now like a tennis-court for smoothness. 

In 1863, when Gordon Lay was restlessly threading 
its hollows and climbing its heights, the dwellings looked 
down a distance of thirty or forty feet into their neigh- 
bors' chimneys, the neighbor having decided to conform 
to the grade. From these aeries one descended at immi- 
nent risk of life and limb. But people who wanted to be 
permanent must perforce meet the grade, and people who 
were transient of course would n't, so there were a good 
many left high up in the world then, if never before. 

An enterprising young man visited this ragged city at 
the close of the war. ‘‘ I went to stay," he said thirty 
years afterward, with money in my pocket to invest. 
Well! I took a look around and decided it could not be 
done. But it was! If I had put my money into those 
hills and sat down and done nothing for the rest of my 
life, I should have been better off in this world's goods 
than I am to-day after a life of hard work." 

It would have been a good time for a young man like 
Gordon Lay to have been thinking of investments, but 
he was not doing it. He had caught sight of a squad of 
mounted men guarding the stage-coach. He quickened 
his steps. The mail was in. 

He lounged around until it was opened, saying to him- 
self that he knew there would n't be one — so as to lessen 
his disappointment when it did not come. 

But the letter came. 

There were two of them. He was not surprised at this, 
for he had written one to Virginia and one to her father. 
They were thick and promising-looking, and both in 
Virginia's writing. He could not wait. He stopped 
under a tree on his way to the barracks. Nobody was 


23 


354 


ORDER NO. 11 


looking, and he kissed the name her hand had penned. 
Then he tore it open. 

He looked at the thing that fell out with eyes that re- 
fused to comprehend. Mechanically, he tore open the 
other. It was like it. 

They were his own unopened letters! 


CHAPTER XL 


THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

W HEN the Trevilians reached Jefferson City they did 
what hundreds of refugees from the depopulated 
counties were doing in different parts of the State. 
They went first to the home of friends whose hearts were 
big enough to take them in with all their poverty and 
wretchedness. 

The one gleam of sunlight on this dark page was the 
infinite depths of human sympathy it brought to light. 
The people of Missouri were sore pressed in ’63. Busi- 
ness was paralyzed; money was hard to get; death was 
rampant; and taxes went on. 

But when the fleeing refugees came, thrust out by pow- 
erful, pitiless hands, they “ took them in and ministered 
to them.’^ Old furniture long disabled was mended up 
and put into empty hands ; the children were huddled 
closer together that the surplus bedding might go to cover 
shivering little ones; storerooms were ransacked to find 
something that could be spared for those who had no- 
thing. In many cases it was, “ Silver and gold have I 
none ; but such as I have, give I thee.’’ 

Said one of those refugees thirty years afterward, hold- 
ing up a battered dripping-pan as she spoke : This, with 
a stove, was sent to me by Mrs. Emily Henderson when I 
went down to Fulton in ’63. A house and lot would not 
be to me now what that cook-stove was then ! ” 

The good Samaritan who had taken them in said to 
Colonel Trevilian a day or two after they arrived; 

355 


356 


ORDER NO. 11 


Colonel, I have a little old house down here it 
really was in Poverty Hollow, but he did n’t like to say 
iso— that does n’t bring me in anything. I can’t rent 
it. I am ashamed to offer it to you, but if you could make 
it do till you can look around — ” 

Colonel Trevilian grasped his hand, every feature 
working with emotion. 

'' My friend ! ” he said ; I shall take it as a gift from 
God!” 

And so, in a little shack, with an old rag-carpet given 
by one, a cord-bedstead and a trundle-bed by another, 
with such odds and ends as the good Samaritan’s wife 
could collect, the Trevilians began again in Poverty 
Hollow. 

It was much in those days to have temporary relief, 
but when they were housed and fed and clothed, and the 
oil of consolation poured into bruised hearts, there was 
always the pressing, immanent question of maintenance. 
They were comfortable now, but “ what should they eat 
and what should they drink and wherewithal should they 
be clothed ” to-morrow ? 

Colonel Trevilian asked himself this question with ago- 
nizing iteration as he walked the streets of the capital 
city. He was just the kind of man to shrink from either 
debt or dependence. And yet— the owner of thousands 
of acres of the richest land in the State — he was penniless. 

What they would have done without the cow nobody 
knows. But the cow rose to the occasion. People can 
live a long time on milk. Then a grocer was found who 
did not have a cow, and a washerwoman who could not 
sew, and a system of barter sprang up. 

It is n’t as if we really worked for money,” said Miss 
Nannie to Virginia. “ We ’ve always done their sewing 
while they did our washing.” 

Of course,” assented Virginia, tearing off the widths 


^‘THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH" 357 


of Aunt Silvy’s new dress. She was wondering how she 
could get some shoes. 

Aunt Silvy precipitated the economic question that was 
bound to be settled sometime. 

Miss Nannie, I ’m mons'us proud of dat frock you- 
all made me. I showed it to ole ’oman Judy, an’ now she 
say ain’t you gwineter make her one? I tole her you 
made mine fur de washin’, an’ she ’low she got some 
mighty fine chickens she ’d give you fur de makin’ of a 
dress.” 

Miss Nannie raised the cover of a box before she an- 
swered, and looked in. There was a little piece of mid- 
dling there— nothing else. And Mrs. Trevilian was sick 
and had been wishing that very morning for chicken- 
soup ! She turned to Aunt Silvy. 

'' Tell her to bring the dress over,” she said. '' I ’ll 
make it.” 

She told Virginia about it that night. '' Don’t tell your 
father,” she said ; you know how he feels about women 
working,” They had to tell Mrs. Trevilian. 

They had been doing this kind of surreptitious work 
for months when, one day, a mulatto woman arrayed in 
tagged-out finery that presented a striking contrast to the 
comfortable plaid linseys of a few years ago knocked at 
the front door. 

Miss Nannie was alone. She had seen the woman 
from the window. She replied to the knock before it 
ended. 

Go around to the back door ! ” she said without cir- 
cumlocution, her eyes flashing. 

The woman hesitated, made a face at the closed door, 
and obeyed. When she came in, she stood transfixed. 

'' Laws-a-mercy ! Ef it ain’t Miss Nannie Trevilian 1 ” 
she exclaimed. 

Miss Nannie looked up quietly from her sewing. 


358 


ORDER NO. 11 


''Howdy, Tildy! You are Mrs. Pasco^s Tildy, ain’t 1 
you?” ] 

The woman threw herself sprawling into the only ! 

rocking-chair the room held. ' 

" No’m! ” she said, bridling. " I ain’t nobody’s Tildy f i 
I b’longs to myself now. Ain’t you hyeahed about de ;! 
procermation ? ” i 

" The proclamation ? ” repeated Miss Nannie, dryly. | 
" Yes, I believe I have.” 

" I ’m Miss Maude Hubbard now,” said the girl, with a 
simper. " I don’t go by de name er Tildy no mo’. I done 
tuk de name er Hubbard — Miss Maude Hubbard.” 

For some reason Miss Nannie, who was kindness and 
consideration itself to Aunt Silvy and Aunt Judy and the 
rest of the white-turbaned tribe, was not responsive to 
Miss Maude Hubbard. 

The woman rocked herself back and forth, eying the 
silent seamstress with evident satisfaction. 

" How did you know we were here ? ” asked Miss 
Nannie. 

" One er de colored ladies tole me dey was a white ; 
woman over here dat tuk in sewin’, but I never ’spicioned 
it was you. Miss Nannie. I never ’spected to see de day 
when you ’d be sewin’ fur de colored people ! ” 

" I don’t know why,” said Miss Nannie. " I ’ve sewed J 
for them all my life.” 

" But you ain’t done it fur pay,” returned the girl, ■ 
striking with unerring instinct at the sorest spot. " Dat ’s 
what I ’m miratin’ about, you doin’ of it fur pay ! ” 

Miss Nannie was speechless with rage. 

Tildy was looking critically around the bare room. 

" Looks like you was seein’ mighty hard times. Miss Nan- 
nie. Where ’s all yo’ things ? ” 

" Gone to Kansas,” said Miss Nannie, grimly. 

" To Kansas ! What fur ? ” 


-THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH" 359 


'' To help put down the rebellion ! 

“ What M you say, Miss Nannie?’^ 

'' I said the Kansas soldiers took them,— the same that 
took you, I reckon/’ 

Aw ! ” She lapsed into silence, looking through the 
open door into the other room and taking in with plea- 
sure all its poverty and bareness. 

- De war ’s made a heap er changes,” she remarked 
complacently. She was misled by Miss Nannie’s impas- 
sive manner. 

''What do you want?” Miss Nannie asked abruptly. 
She felt her patience giving way. 

The woman turned to her bundle. 

" Is you ever made any party dresses. Miss Nannie?” 

" Yes.” She was thinking of the last one she had had. 
It was of lavender silk, and she had made it to wear to 
Tom Caldwell’s infare out on the prairie. It seemed a 
thousand years since then! 

" Well, I want to git you to make one fur me.” She 
was unrolling the bundle as she spoke and laying it in 
Miss Nannie’s lap. But she was not quite ready yet for 
the details of business. 

" Yaas’m, de war sho’ly has made a heap er changes,” 
she repeated reflectively ; " I cert’n’y never ’spected to see 
de time when Miss Nannie Trevilian would be makin’ a 
ball-dress fur a colored lady— fur pay! ” 

" You have n’t seen it yet! ” said Miss Nannie. " You 
have n’t got money enough to — ” 

" Oh, I gwineter pay you,” the girl said, with a toss of 
her head. " I got plenty er money ! Is Figinia workin’, 
too?” 

" You impudent— black— hussy ! ” cried Miss Nannie, 
hurling the words at her as if they were missiles, get 
out of here! If you ever set foot on this place again, 
I ’ll set the dogs on you ! ” 


360 


ORDER NO. 11 


She had forgotten that the dogs, too, were gone. 

Miss Maude Hubbard shot through the door with one 
agile bound. Her effects, in the shape of a shower of 
pink tarlatan and linings and spools and ribbons, followed 
her, to be picked up later. 

Then Miss Nannie slammed the door and dropped in a 
passion of humiliated tears on the trundle-bed. Virginia 
found her thus a half-hour later. 

Oh, Virge, Virge 1 ’’ she cried hysterically. I Ve 
killed the goose that laid the golden egg ! '' 

“ Why, Aunt Nan, what in the world have you done? 

Done ? I \e called a nigger an impudent black 
hussy ! and I ought to have called her a colored lady ! ’’ 

When she had made her explanation Virginia looked 
sober. 

''I’m afraid our business is done for. Aunt Nan} 
But ’’—she drew a long breath—" it was worth it! ” 

That night she sewed up her shoes once more and put 
in an extra layer of pasteboard. 

Of all these business complications Colonel Trevilian 
knew nothing. 

" There ’s no use telling him,” Miss Nannie had said ; 
and his wife and daughter agreed with her. 

" No. It would humiliate him beyond measure to 
know that the women on the place are at work and he is 
not,” said Mrs. Trevilian. " You know how he has al- 
ways felt about your doing anything. Nan, — that is, any- 
thing except about the house.” 

" I know,” said his sister, with a half-sob ; " but mercy ! 
sister Bettie, people’s ways have got to change now! — 
and their notions, too ! ” 

They lived in daily, hourly hope of his finding some- 
thing to do. He was familiar with legislative work; he 
had been representative more than once, and he had been 
a first-class farmer. But it is hard to find work in mid- 


^^THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH" 361 


die life, especially when all the old traditions and methods 
and institutions are tottering around one. 

Colonel Trevilian, as the days went by, walked in a 
dazed way through the new order of things. There were 
government offices, but they were naturally not for one 
who was a Southern sympathizer. There were places 
enough of certain kinds, but young men were the ones 
sought for them. There were business openings, too, but 
capital was needed to make use of them. There are few 
greater tragedies in this world than the daily struggle for 
existence, especially for one who begins the struggle late. 

One day, when Colonel Trevilian had gone hopefully 
to try for a position only to find it filled, the man said in 
response to a question: 

No, sir ; I don’t really know of a thing — not a single 
thing in this town that you would be likely to get— un- 
less — ” He hesitated, looked hastily at the Colonel’s 
stately form, and then away. 

I am willing to do anything honorable, sir,” said 
Colonel Trevilian,—'" anything! ” 

"Well,” said the man, with some embarrassment, " they 
say they are needing men at the prison just now.” 

" In what capacity, sir ? ” asked the Colonel, eagerly. 

"As guards.” 

Colonel Trevilian started. He had thought he was 
ready for anything. 

" I thank you, sir,” he said at last, with difficulty. " I 
— I will — consider it. Yes,” — firmly, — " I will consider 
it, sir.” 

He lifted his hat with the grace of a courtier and 
walked slowly down the street, stumbling a little as if he 
were not sure of his footing. 

" Poor old fellow ! ” the man said, looking after him 
and shaking his head, " That ’si a sad case ! He belongs 
to a past order.’^ 


362 


ORDER NO. 11 


How Colonel Trevilian considered it one knowing the 
traditions of his race and of his age could conjecture. 
But— the woodpile was nearly gone, and the mercury 
falling ! 

He walked around to where he knew a prison gang 
was at work. He said to himself that there would be no 
harm in that. It would not commit him to anything. 
Certainly not. He stepped rapidly until he came within 
sight of them. Then he moderated his pace and saun- 
tered by, looking at them casually in passing. The guards 
stood gun in hand. He tried to think of himself in that 
position. No ! No ! '' One might better be an over- 

seer,'’ he thought bitterly. 

He quickened his steps. He wanted to get away— out 
of sight of the miserable wretches in their zebra coats. 
How hideous daily association with criminals must be! 
But — it was very cold ! 

He buttoned his overcoat tight around his throat, and 
then a minute later threw it open at the neck. Somehow, 
the thing choked him, and after his rapid walking he 
needed breath. His way was straight east. He was near- 
ing the outskirts of the town, and the prison lay that way. 
At the sight of the walls he stopped. 

I don't know what I have come out here for," he said 
to himself. '' I certainly am not going to be a prison 
guard 1 Why ! it is monstrous I monstrous I " 

But when he essayed to turn his steps he seemed drawn 
forward. Something impelled him from within. It was 
a lonely road. As he stumbled on, fragments of sentences 
fell from his lips— he did not know he was thinking 
aloud. 

'' It is very cold— and getting colder. . . . Yes, only 
three sticks." Then he drew himself up. '' A guard, did 
you say? — a guard?" His lip curled in scorn. ''Why, 
sir, she is a descendant of the cavaliers! But — the child 


^‘THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH" 363 


needs the shoes. Virginia! fatal name! . . . Well, I— I 
will— consider it/^ 

It was late when he got home. He came stumblingly 
into the room. He felt very old— it was hard to lift his 
feet. What would they say? had been the burden of his 
thoughts. Oh, no, they would say nothing. But what 
would they think? how would they feel? Ah! — But 
what was a man to do? he asked himself, looking around 
fiercely. 

They were all there. He had hoped to find his wife 
alone. She took his hat and drew him to the blazing fire. 

Come and get warm, Mr. Trevilian,’^ she said cheer- 
fully. '' It is cold to-night.’’ She saw that something 
had happened. 

He sat down and held out his hands to the blaze. 

“ Bettie!” 

She was beside him instantly. Was it Beverly? 

‘‘ What is it, dear?” 

“ I have got work.” 

You have ! Oh, I am so glad ! Where? ” 

At the prison ! ” 

The prison ! ” she echoed. 

Yes ; ” he said with bitter, cutting emphasis. I go 
to-morrow as a guard ! ” 

For a moment there was dead silence. It was broken 
by a dismayed ejaculation from Miss Nannie. 

"" Brother!” 

Mrs. Trevilian shot a swift glance of warning at her 
sister-in-law. Not for naught did the blood of the cava- 
liers course through her veins. If blue blood is not for 
emergencies like this, what is it for? She drew her hus- 
band’s head close to her as she stood, and smoothed back 
the iron-gray locks. Then she sat down by him and 
looked with unflinching eyes into his. 


364 


ORDER NO. 11 


I am very, very glad,^’ she said cheerfully. It is not 
what you want, but what you can get, these days! And 
you dl be a prince among guards, my dear 1 

There was a ringing note of courage in her words that 
roused him like a clarion. 

A look of ineffable relief stole over his face. 

Will it be hard work ? she asked. 

He did not answer. He did not hear her. He took her 
hand, reddened and roughened by unaccustomed toil, and 
raised it to his lips. Not in the sunny days of courtship 
had she been so unspeakably dear to him as now. 

' A prudent wife is from the Lord,’ ” he said. '' ^ Her 
price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth 
safely trust in her. . . . She shall do him good and not 
evil all the days of her life.’ ” 

‘‘ Amen 1 ” said Miss Nannie, inaudibly. 

I wonder if I will ever have any sense 1 ” she added to 
Virginia in the other room. ‘‘ I know sister Bettie is the 
best woman in the world 1 ” 


CHAPTER XLI 


CONFIRMATION STRONG 

C OLONEL TREVILIAN did not go as a prison 
guard. Before the morning came he was burning 
with fever and racked with pain. The exposure of the 
day before had been too much for him. 

It is pneumonia/’ the doctor said briefly, and they 
fought for his life. 

On the sixth day he said, The crisis is past. He will 
live. But, Mrs. Trevilian— ” 

Yes, Doctor.” 

He ought not to think of work for months. This will 
leave him very feeble.” 

They were having a consultation in the room adjoining 
the one in which the patient lay. Virginia sat on the 
bed for want of a chair. The doctor had the far-seeing 
eyes of a sympathetic physician, and all of his opportuni- 
ties for observation. The straits of the family had not 
escaped his notice, though they were never obtruded upon 
him. 

“Miss Virginia,” he said abruptly, looking up from 
the pills he was rolling out on the reverse side of a plate, 
“ could you teach ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

Dr. Mayo looked at her keenly. “ Have you ever 
taught? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ How do you know you can, then ? ” 

365 


366 


ORDER NO. 11 


People can always do what they have to do/’ she an> 
swered. '' I want to teach ! ” 

“ I know a school that wants a teacher/’ 

“ Where ? ” she asked eagerly. 

About seven miles from here.” 

“ Could I get it?” 

I think so. They asked me to look out for them. 
But it is a country school.” 

I would n’t care for that. I ’m a country girl.” 

He had forgotten that. People always forgot it. 

'' They don’t pay much. You would have to hunt up 
your scholars and take your chances about collecting. It 
would n’t pay you more than twenty dollars a month, 
probably.” 

Twenty dollars a month seemed a small fortune to her 
just then. 

“ I ’d hunt up the scholars.” 

They say there are some pretty hard boys in the 
school.” He seemed determined to discourage her. 
“ The last teacher was turned out. I reckon you ’d better 
think it over.” 

‘‘ Dr. Mayo,” she said ; I would take them if they 
were Comanche Indians ! ” 

I reckon you will be able to hold them ! How soon 
could you go ? ” 

To-day.” 

He looked at her with a new interest. She was plucky, 
certainly. 

And you raised in the lap of luxury ! ” he said. 

And Southern women supposed to be drones,” added 
Miss Nannie. 

Sometimes they seem to be queen-bees,” he remarked, 
without looking up from the roll he was chopping into 
little pieces to be molded into spheres. 

'' And sometimes they are just plain workers,” said 
Virginia, ‘‘ or want to be.” 


CONFIRMATION STRONG 367 


Virginia, dear, do you think you had better try it ? ’’ 
It seemed a great undertaking to Mrs. Trevilian for a girl 
to go out into the world to earn a living. The women 
she had known had been used to w^ork, but they led shel- 
tered lives at home while doing it. 

I ’m not going to ^ try ’ it,” Virginia said. ‘‘ I ’m 
going to do it.^' 

Her mother looked at her wistfully. She hardly knew 
her daughter these days. 

It was easily arranged. Dr. Mayo took her out and 
helped her make up her school. He knew she needed the 
place, and then he liked her spirit. He promised to call 
for her Friday afternoon. He would be out in that neigh- 
borhood, he said, and it would be on his way. He was a 
friend of the family, and Virginia was overwhelmed with 
his fatherly goodness. 

If ever work was a boon, — and it has been to countless 
millions who have never recognized it as such,— it was to 
Virginia Trevilian just then. It was more than food and 
raiment for a needy body, it was healing for a sick soul. 
Ah ! work is God^s best gift to suffering humanity ! The 
primal curse, '' In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat 
bread,” has been transmuted by the divine touch into 
blessing. 

But Mrs. Trevilian was right. Virginia was not the 
same light-hearted girl that had reigned queen of the 
prairie ” ; she was not the brave one that had heartened 
them all in the days when they had gone forth, not know- 
ing whither they went. She was cheery yet, when any- 
body was by; she was determined still, but it seemed as 
if something within her had died. What was it? Faith? 
or hope? or love? 

Not love, surely. She was too young for that— her 
pulses were too bounding. Not hope? No, no. Hope is 
the very last to leave us. All else may go, but hope re- 
mains. Could it be faith? God forbid! 


368 


ORDER NO. 11 


Whatever it was, it had come like a stroke. Virginia 
had gone down-town for the mail one day a few weeks 
after they reached Jefferson City. She had come back 
with a letter from Mollie Driscoll and gone off in light 
mood to read it. Mr. Driscoll had gone in to the nearest 
military post, — near enough to get occasional news from 
the old neighborhood. Virginia stayed a long time over 
the letter. 

When she came in she smiled as usual at her mother, 
jested with Miss Nannie, and stroked her father's gray 
head, but it seemed to her mother's keen eyes that from 
that hour a part of her was gone. 

In truth, no matter what she said or did, there was ever 
before her eyes a fragment of Mollie's letter : ‘‘ You know 
that Chandler girl. Well, they say—" 

It was the rest of it that was burned into her brain. 
She read Mollie's letter over till she knew it by heart. 

There are degrees of guilt among scandal-mongers. 
Mollie would never have originated the story she retailed, 
but she passed it on eagerly, without a thought of verifi- 
cation first; and when it came to results, the difference 
between the two was infinitesimal. 

Virginia had not heard from Gordon for weeks. She 
supposed rightly that it was because he did not know 
where they were, and she did not know where to reach 
him. War made everything so uncertain. She had tried 
hard to keep her trust ; she had spurned the base accusa- 
tion of Emmons Baird as she had spurned him ; she had 
borne up against a weight of evidence ; but with this let- 
ter she began to feel that it would crush her down yet. . . . 
The girl had been spirited away somewhere, Mollie said. 

She was sitting listlessly one day in a doorway open- 
ing into the back yard. In the next room she heard her 
father say to her mother : I heard something to-day 
that troubles me. It is about Gordon." 


CONFIRMATION STRONG 369 


Virginia sat motionless, every sense alert, every muscle 
tense. Miss Nannie had gone down-town and they 
thought Virginia was with her. 

It was the story told by the male gossip which had 
drifted down the country. It had not lost in transit, but 
the main features were correct. There was a beautiful 
golden-haired woman, a child over whom she wept, and 
Gordon taking her to a place of safety. With less foun- 
dation, a withering blight has fallen upon many a reputa- 
tion and laid it low. 

'' Do you think that Virginia—'' 

The girl stepped softly out upon the grass, and they 
finished their talk alone. How glad she was she had 
never told them! They might conjecture all they wanted 
to, but they did not know! 

It might have been better if they had known, for as 
she strayed aimlessly about the yard and garden with 
wretched face, and eyes that hardly saw where she was 
going. Colonel Trevilian was saying to his wife: 

“ By the Eternal ! if I thought he was anything to 
Virginia I would search him out and make him tell 
me!" 

'' I hardly think there is anything between them," she 
said. I used to feel almost certain that they loved each 
other, but for a year or more she has seemed rather in- 
diflrerent about him. I should hate for her to know any- 
thing about it until the story is actually verified." 

Yes," he said, it is a great pity for young girls to 
know such things — even if they exist. And, of course, 
if there is nothing between them it would be an imperti- 
nence for me to write to him. . . . My poor old friend! 
I 'm glad he was under the sod before this came ! " 

Miss Nannie and Virginia were sitting one day sewing. 
It was a dress for old Aunt Silvy, and Miss Nannie was 
singing. The two ladies sang a good deal in those days. 


370 


ORDER NO. 11 


—mostly hymns that breathed of trust,— for their hearts 
needed strengthening. 

“ Thus far the Lord has led me on,’' to the tune of 

Hebron,” was Mrs. Trevilian’s, though she often sang 
softly : 

Sometimes a light surprises — ” 
dwelling most on the lines : 

And He who feeds the ravens 
Will give His children bread. ” 

To-day Miss Nannie was particularly downcast, so she 
sang lighter things— snatches of old ballads and plays 
and serenades. They brought back Grand Prairie days ; 
and almost unconsciously she drifted into the swaying, 
rhythmical flow of : 

Oh, sister Phoebe, how merry were we 

When we sat under the juniper tree! 

The juniper tree, heigh-o! heigh-o! 

The juniper tree, heigh-o! ” 

The ease with which a voice, the note of a song, the 
odor of a flower, can cut the cords of time and space and 
let our souls free seems almost like a hint of powers su- 
pernal. We were here— we are there! It has taken but 
a moment, but time is obliterated. 

Miss Nannie was feeling this a little. There was a 
quaver in her voice now and then as long-vanished ones 
swung into view. But Virginia— ah 1 Virginia was under 
the sweet honeysuckle— its fragrance enveloped her— a 
deep voice was thrilling in ear and heart. . . . And she 
had trusted him so! 

‘‘ Aunt Nan,— don’t sing that, please.’^ 


CONFIRMATION STRONG 371 


Miss Nannie stopped, but did not question. They were 
very merciful. They knew she was hurt, but they did not 
probe for the ball. 

It was soon after this that Virginia had an invitation 
to go over to Fulton, about twenty-five miles away, to 
visit the daughter of an old friend of her mother’s. She 
was not very anxious to make the visit, as they were com- 
parative strangers to her, but her mother thought it 
would do her good, and she went — not so much to visit 
Sadie Lawler as to get away from herself and the ghosts 
that walked. 

One day they were driving through the grounds of the 
State Lunatic Asylum, which was located at Fulton, and 
was one of the lions to be exhibited. A number of the 
patients were out for their afternoon walk, — a dreary 
sight at best, — and this was a woebegone lot. Virginia 
could not bear to look at them. Suddenly an exclamation 
fell from Sadie’s lips. 

'' Oh, Virginia ! look at that pretty girl ! ” 

Virginia turned toward them. Like a June rose among 
blasted plants was a fair-haired girl who looked at them 
with unseeing eyes. She had a rag baby pressed to her 
breast. 

It seemed to Virginia that her breath would stop. 
Something seemed to be holding her throat. 

'' Sadie, — that looks like a girl I know ! I wish we 
could find out something about her.” 

'' What do you want to know ? I ’ll ask Annie Abbot 
about her. Her father is one of the physicians there 
now.” 

Find out her name, and where she is from — and — 
who brought her here,” said Virginia, feeling her cheeks 
flush. 

The next day Sadie reported. She had seen Annie in 
the meantime. 


372 


ORDER NO. 11 


'' Her name is Chandler, and she is from the western ; 
part of the State, somewhere. Annie says it is an awfully ; 
sad story. She thinks the doll is her real child,— the one 
she lost, — and she dresses and undresses it and puts it to | 
bed. Is nl it pitiful ! I don't think she can be older than j 
we are." J 

''Pitiful! Oh-h! there are no words that can — • 

Sadie ! " ■ 

"What?" ' 

" Did she tell you who brought her here— who sup- ^ 
ports her ? " " j 

" Oh, yes ; I forgot that. It was a young Federal offi- ! 
cer, Annie says, — a Lieutenant Lay. She said there i 

seemed to be something rather mysterious about the case. i 
He wanted her received under some other name than her ,| 
own,— Annie did n't remember what it was,— but Dr. ) 
Smith would n't do it." 5 

Virginia did not reply. The hand was clutching her | 
throat again. ji 

A day or two after she got home, Virginia went ? 

down for the mail. She liked to have the first handling J 

of it. I 

Two letters were handed to her — one for herself and ) 

one, in the same writing, for her father. She knew what i 

that one was. Gordon had written her in his last letter | 

that it was time now they were told. She held the letters | 

in her hand and looked at them. It seemed as if her | 

gaze might almost burn through the paper and consume | 

its contents. This one would ask her father in courteous | 

phrase for his daughter, promising to love, cherish, and | 
be true to her ! And this one would be filled with all the I 
sweet assurances she had loved to hear and longed for ; 
and trusted— poor fool! i 

A sudden anger possessed her— an unreasoning, jealous 
fury that would brook no explanation, no delay. 


CONFIRMATION STRONG 373 

“ Some envelops, please,-— large size,’’ she was saying 
at the stationer’s counter across the room. 

She put the letters in them unopened, addressed them 
in a hand that did not falter, placed the stamps with scru- 
pulous exactness, and dropped them in. 

Then she went home and wept as only a woman can 
with the ruins of her life about her. 

Looked at dispassionately, what was the motive that 
actuated her? Impulse? Nay, verily! her act was the 
logical outcome of her life and training. She had been 
reared in a strict school of morals; by a father who im- 
pressed upon her in a crisis of her life that character was 
above all ; by a mother who would overthrow cherished 
plans to guard the virtue of a negro servant ; in a religious 
faith which maligned and misrepresented as it has been 
and charged with all that is stern and forbidding, has yet 
unchallenged in its favor that it makes chaste men and 
women. The girl’s whole soul was in revolt. Every in- 
stinct of her pure woman’s nature cried out against the 
wrong that had been done,— the wrong to her as well as 
to the other,— and from her decision there would not be 
the shadow of turning. 

When Mrs. Trevilian and Miss Nannie got home from 
the female prayer-meeting, she was lying still with a wet 
cloth over her eyes. It was only a headache, she said. 
Almost any girl can have a headache when her eyes need 
to be hidden. 

They did not know it, but there had been a funeral that 
day, A beautiful form had been laid low and a tomb 
raised over it. On the stone was graven : 


‘‘Here lies Faith.” 


CHAPTER XLII 


THE FORTUNES OF LOVE AND WAR 

AND this is why Virginia Trevilian found work more 
than meat and drink that winter. She used to say 
afterwards that she thought she would have died if it had 
not been for that school; but probably not, for people 
seldom die except from physical causes. 

There was another thing that helped her through. She 
came back to Poverty Hollow one Saturday afternoon 
with a light in her eyes such as they had not seen there for 
many a long day. 

She had just been down-town, and she wore her new 
dress of mazarine blue merino, with its tiny brass buttons 
down the close-fitting front, and white collar and cuffs 
that set it off like a modem tailor-made gown. It was the 
one luxury she had permitted herself from her salary, for 
the demands were legion. To-day there was a flush on 
her cheeks from the bracing air, and as she stood before 
them the dingy room seemed suddenly bright. She 
looked again the queen of the prairie.’’ 

'' Guess who I ’ve seen ! ” 

They only looked at her, rejoiced to see the brightening 
of her face. 

‘‘ Well, guess! It ’s somebody from Kansas.” 

Lieutenant Tigerman,” hazarded Miss Nannie. 

'' No. Nor Jennison— nor Lane. It is somebody you 
really would like to see.” 

'' Then he was n’t from Ks-^sas ! ” said \Iiss Nannie, 


FORTUNES OF LOVE AND WAR 375 


grimly. I never want to see a living creature from 
Kansas again— not even a dog! I would know he was 
around after a bone— and would get it 1 ’’ 

“ You are safe this time, Aunt Nan. It was Dr. 
Cheever. 

“ Dr. Cheever I ’’ It was evident, from the simul- 
taneous exclamation of pleasure, that some good could 
^ome out of Nazareth. 

''What is he doing here?’’ asked Mrs. Trevilian. 

" He is here with his regiment— the something Kansas 
— I forget what; but it is not the Seventh, I know that 
much.” 

"Thank the Lord!” ejaculated Miss Nannie. 

They were very glad to see him when he came — it 
seemed like a page out of the old life. 

Dr. Cheever came often to Poverty Hollow. He came 
sometimes on week-days, when Virginia was off leading 
her little band up the thorny path that leads to know- 
ledge, but he came always on Saturday. It is undeniable 
that he brightened life for the girl not a little that winter, 
with walks and talks, and horseback rides and drives to 
and from her school. But it must be said that she paid 
the debt, for she irradiated it for him. Since he had seen 
her, she had passed from joyous girlhood to womanhood. 
She was more dignified and serious than he had thought 
she would ever be, but she had been through enough to 
sober her, he thought. 

They talked much about the prairie, but only once did 
Dr. Cheever ask about Gordon. That he suspected any- 
thing about their previous relations Virginia could only 
surmise from his not asking. However, Gordon was in 
Kentucky when he was at Keswick, and perhaps he 
thought nothing about him. But one day he asked where 
he was, and if they ever heard from him. 

No, Virginia said, she did not know where he was — 


376 


ORDER NO. 11 


in Kansas City, she believed— they never heard from him 
— the war had made many changes in friendships. 

He looked at her keenly. The war had n’t made much 
difference with theirs. 

One Friday afternoon, after some months of this pleas- 
ant intercourse, they were driving in from Virginia’s 
country boarding-place. A half-mile or so from town 
the road over which they were passing forked— the one 
to the right going around the hills by circuitous wind- 
ings and into Jefferson City from the east— the other, 
straight to town. Dr. Cheever had something to say to 
Virginia, for his regiment had been ordered away, and 
he had planned to say it not too far from the fork. Then 
he could take either road. 

He had been preoccupied all during the drive. Vir- 
ginia had most of the talking to do, and she was begin- 
ning to wonder why. 

They were about a mile from the fork of the road when 
Dr. Cheever said almost abruptly : 

‘‘ Miss Virginia, did you know that Gordon Lay and I 
are old acquaintances ? ” 

'' Why, no ! ” she said in great surprise. '' Where did 
you know Gordon Lay? I thought you had never met.” 

I know him well. At Pittsburg Landing, I believe 
before God, he saved my life. I was left on the field for 
dead, but he found me and had me cared for. They said 
it wasn’t worth while to move me. But he said it was. 
And he was right.” 

“ I heard you tell about that,” said Virginia, wonder- 
ingly, but I never dreamed that it was Gordon ! ” 

‘‘ It was. Then we were together before Corinth and 
got to be the best of friends. You know war sometimes 
makes, as well as breaks, friendships. He is a fine 
fellow.” 

But it is so strange you did n’t tell us,” she said. 


FORTUNES OF LOVE AND WAR 377 


'' I asked you about him one day, and I thought, from 
the way you answered, that it was not a pleasant subject 
to you. So I said nothing more about it. Well, a week 
ago I had a letter from him that I think you ought to 
know about.’’ 

Virginia’s hands were clenched tight Under the 
lap-robe, and her heart was throbbing as if it would 
burst. 

I wrote to him about you, and—” 

About me ? ” she cried, turning upon him. The dan- 
ger-signal was fluttering in her cheeks now, and he said 
hastily : 

“ Don’t be angry with me ! Let me explain before 
you say anything at all, won’t you ? ” 

Go on,” she said, shutting her lips tight. 

When we were down there in camp we were together 
a great deal, Gordon and I, especially after I found who 
it was that had refused to let me die, and naturally we 
talked much about the prairie and Keswick and all of 
you. You know those things seem pretty close to a man 
when he is likely to go to the battle-field any day and not 
come away. He never told me whether there was any- 
thing between you or not. I often wanted to ask, but, of 
course, I knew he thought a great deal of you and that 
he got letters from you, for he did tell me that. He used 
to read parts of them to me where you told what the Kan- 
sas soldiers did. I knew a part of that story before it was 
told to me here.” 

Virginia sat perfectly still. 

'' Well, when I asked you about him you told me that 
you never heard from him, and I knew then that either 
something had come between you or that it had just been 
a friendly correspondence that had died out. But, Vir- 
ginia,—” 

Virginia started. He had never called her by her name 


378 


ORDER NO. 11 


before. But he was too much in earnest to notice her 
surprise. 

''—the time had come when I had to know. Gordon 
Lay was my friend; I owed him my life; not even for 
lovfe of you would I be disloyal to him. If what had come ^ 

between you was some foolish estrangement, I could not j 

take advantage of it to ask the thing I wanted to know. | 

But if I had been mistaken— then it was everything to me | 

to know it. I wrote to him and asked him plainly if he | 

had any claim upon you that I, his friend, was in honor ^ 

bound to respect. Virginia, forgive me ! I did it because I 

I loved you.’’ - 

She was looking straight ahead. She did not dare to | 
turn toward him, for her eyes were brimming with tears. 

Oh, why were things so at cross-purposes in this world ! % 

Why could she not return the love of this man— this hon- 
orable, high-minded gentleman? 

He took a letter from his breast pocket and gave it to ^ 
her. She opened it slowly. It seemed ages since she had | 

seen that writing. The letter was brief : ■ 

" In regard to the question you asked me,” it said, after ; 

some expression of pleasure at hearing from him again, | 

" I will simply say that I have no claim whatever upon | 

Virginia Trevilian.” (It seemed for a moment as if her 5 
heart stood still.) " You are as free to speak as she to 
answer.” 

That was all. She read it over three times before she 
spoke. 

Then she turned to him with a composure that sur- ' 
prised herself. She almost felt that she was somebody i 
else, and she had a strange feeling of pity for that other j 
self. 


FORTUNES OF LOVE AND WAR 379 


“ He is quite right/' she said in an even tone ; there is* 
nothing whatever between us/' 

Was it Talleyrand that said speech was given for the 
purpose of concealing thought? 

As Virginia Trevilian spoke these words her heart was 
throbbing a denial and her whole soul protesting. 
There is ! there is ! " 

They were nearing the fork. The last barrier was 
down— and Dr. Cheever spoke. 

Virginia hardly remembered afterward what he said. 
She tried to think the next day and could not— for pound- 
ing and pounding and pounding on the delicate nerves of 
hearing, above all his tender words, was Gordon's curt 
renunciation,— I have no claim whatever on Virginia 
Trevilian." 

It was true ! He had no claim ! He had forfeited it ! 
She herself had severed their bonds when she returned 
his unopened letters in that contemptuous fashion. She 
would do it again ! She would do it to-morrow ! But — 
in all this wretched business, Virginia had felt that she 
was renouncing Gordon, and she had been upheld in it all 
by a stern sense of right. She was not aware that she was 
bolstered up by anything else. But now — for sometimes 
a lightning flash lays our souls bare to ourselves— she 
knew that the thought of Gordon's renouncing her had 
never occurred to her. 

When it did, she felt bereft. 

‘‘ Virginia, will you not speak to me ? " 

They were at the fork now. Virginia spoke— and he 
took the left-hand road. 


CHAPTER XLIII 


THE SCENT OF A HONEYSUCKLE 

W HEN Dr. Cheever's regiment was ordered away, as 
it was soon after this, they all had a sense of loss. 
Poverty Hollow seemed gloomier than ever without his 
visits. Virginia had to fall back upon Dr. Mayo for com- 
panionship; and, really, just at this time it was more in 
keeping with her feelings to be with him than with a 
younger man. 

He was her father’s friend, — and he was such a 
good friend ! He had even found Colonel Trevilian work 
to do when he was able to do it ; he was a cultivated man 
of education and refinement, and was old enough for her 
to feel perfectly free from restraint in his presence. It 
rested her to talk with him, she used to say, he was so 
intelligent and so sensible. It was certainly a fortunate 
thing for her that he could stop by for her on his way 
home every Friday ! It did not occur to Virginia to won- 
der at a periodicity in his patient that required a doctor’s 
attention once a week, or to inquire whether he gave qui- 
nine for it. The truth was, she had never looked upon 
him in any other light than that of a valued family friend. 

Her intercourse with him was a tonic to her, and Vir- 
ginia needed a tonic. She learned to look forward to 
those rides, and was almost her old self as she chatted 
at his side or talked seriously to him of life’s deeper 
things. It gave him a marvelous opportunity to see her 
at her best. 

And Dr. Mayo was a widower. 

380 


SCENT OF A HONEYSUCKLE 381 

One Friday in the spring, when the trees were putting 
on their first green and the maples were still in old rose, 
Colonel Trevilian came out for her. They were half-way 
home before she knew what had really brought him. 

'' My daughter,'' he said, after a pause in the conversa- 
tion, 1 want to talk with you about a matter that is very 
near my heart. Will you hear me patiently until I am 
through ? " 

She looked at him wonderingly. 

“ Why, certainly, father. Anything that is near your 
heart is near mine, too." 

It is not about myself, Virginia. It is about you.” 

'' About me? What is it? " 

Virginia, Dr. Mayo is a very dear friend of mine. I 
knew him when I was in the legislature — knew him well. 
He is a man of sterling worth." 

I know it, father. And he has been so good to me 
this winter. He is the dearest man ! " 

I am very glad to know you feel so. It makes it easy 
to say what is on my heart. Virginia, Dr. Mayo has asked 
my permission to address you." 

Father!" 

The cry broke from her as if she had been wounded. 
Her first feeling was one of bitter loss ; the next, a strange 
repulsion. 

“ Yes. He would not speak to you until he knew he 
had my consent. It is a custom I like. It guards a wo- 
man from unwelcome suitors." 

Virginia did not answer. She was thinking with poig- 
nant remembrance of a certain youthful love whose ex- 
uberance did not wait for stately conventionalities or go- 
betweens. 

'' Virginia, in years past I— had hoped—" he spoke 
hesitatingly— he knew he was on thin ice — in fact, Dr> 
Lay and I— had spoken together about—" 


382 


ORDER NO. 11 


‘‘ It will never be, father/’ 

Ah ! I thought perhaps you might feel so. I am not 
sure but you are right— and yet — Gordon was a manly 
boy— I can hardly think—” 

We won’t talk about it, father, please. I don’t want 
to go away from you and mother. Why should I? You 
are not tired of me, are you ? ” 

He drew her to him. My dear child ! ” 

They did not talk for a few moments. Then he said : 

It is because of my love for you, Virginia, that I want 
to see you in some good man’s home. It has been much 
on my heart during my months of illness. I felt that I 
could not die and leave you unprovided for.” 

Father, I am happy teaching.” 

He shook his head. It is not the natural way, my 
child. God never intended woman for the bread-winner. 
Her whole constitution and the bent of her affections pro- 
claim that she was made for the home. You did nobly in 
taking up the burden that your father had to lay down, 
but it is not the right way— it is not Nature’s way. A 
woman should have a man’s strong arm to lean on. I 
would not try to force your affections, my child; but I 
should be glad to see you provided for. These last few 
months have made me feel the uncertainties of life so! 
And Dr. Mayo is a good man. As mistress of his 
home — ” 

Father, don’t talk to me any more about it now. I 
want to stay with you and mother.” 

Well, well 1 I only wanted to prepare you for it and 
tell you how I felt. I should hate to see you spend your 
life in the school-room, my child. And Dr. Mayo is a fine 
man.” 

The seed dropped that day was left to germinate. The 
doctor had the wisdom to keep away from Poverty Hol- 
low for a while. When he did speak to her about it he 


SCENT OF A HONEYSUCKLE 583 


was very gentle. She should have all the time she wanted 
to decide, he said. And Virginia stipulated that for two 
months it should not be referred to between them. 

Miss Nannie was the doctor’s open ally. 

'' I ’m never going to marry anybody,” said Virginia to 
her, one day, as they sat together. “ I ’m going to be a 
dear, sweet old maid like you. Aunt Nan, and live with 
Beverly, and be another mother to his children, as you 
have been to us.” 

Virginia,” said Miss Nannie, seriously, “ I want a 
better fate for you than an old maid’s life. Not that I 
have n’t been content, child, for I have ; but— a solitary 
life is always more or less a lonely one.” 

Aunt Nan, have you been lonely? ” 

Hardly lonely. But, Virginia, I will say to you what 
I have never said to any living soul before, and would n’t 
to-day under any other circumstances. A woman is al- 
ways lonely, in a way, who does not feel herself the su- 
preme object of somebody’s affection. She may not ac- 
knowledge it, but that does not change the fact. I have 
been blessed beyond most solitary women. I have never 
been made to feel my dependence. I have never felt that 
I was alone. But — in whose affections am I first?” 

Aunt Nan, you know how we all love you ! ” cried 
Virginia, reproachfully. 

I do know. I ’m not complaining. But, Virginia, it 
never quite satisfies a woman’s heart to be second. Don’t 
forget that. And if she has not husband and children she 
must be.” 

They sat in silence a moment, and then Miss Nannie 
said impulsively : 

Virge, I ’m old enough now to say what I please. 
That ’s one nice thing about getting old— and about the 
only one I know of— and I ’m going to do it. There is in 
every woman’s heart that which cries out for the close. 


384 


ORDER NO. 11 


I 


intimate companionship of some other soul. They may 
say it is n't so, but it is. And that is n't all. Deep down 
in every true woman's heart is a longing for the touch of 
little hands. Nothing else satisfies the mother instinct 
within her. You hear people talk sometimes as if they 
thought this was immodest. Immodest 1 It is the holiest 
feeling of a woman's nature ! But if an unmarried wo- 
man dares to express it she is called a love-sick old maid ! 
So they simply stifle the feeling and try to live it down. 
/ know ! " 

Aunt Nan," said Virginia, wonderingly, I never 
knew you felt that way." 

No, of course not. I don't go around proclaiming 
my deepest feelkigs from the house-tops. I only say it to 
you now because I don't want you to get the notion in 
your head of being an old maid. I know they are useful. 
I certainly am not decrying old maids. But, honey, I 
don't want you to be one ! I want you to have the fullest 
possible life, and that will not be in Beverly's home, but in 
your own. There is something in being the mistress of 
your own establishment. It gives you a place in the 
world that nothing else does. Oh, yes; I know that is a 
secondary thing, — but it is something." 

Virginia did not seem specially responsive, and Miss 
Nannie looked at her keenly. 

‘‘ Virginia, there is one thing I want to ask you." 

Don't do it. Aunt Nan. I would n't answer you." 

'' Honey, you are sure it never will be ? " 

Never!" 

“ Then think seriously of this other. You like Dr. 
Mayo. That feeling may grow into something deeper and 
stronger. And I will give you another piece of old maid's 
wisdom. Girls sometimes let good opportunities for mar- 
riage go by, expecting some Prince Charming to appear, 
till it is too late." 


'1 


SCENT OF A HONEYSUCKLE 385 


Too late?’’ 

Yes, too late. You girls never seem to understand 
that there is a seed-time in love as in other things, — and 
that time is in the spring ! ” 

As the weeks went by, Virginia pondered deeply over 
the question she was to answer. She liked Dr. Mayo. 
He was never tiresome to her, and that was a good deal. 
Of course he was much older,— old enough, in fact, to be 
her father,— but he was genial and companionable, and he 
was not exacting. He was willing to give much and take 
little, — so little, indeed, that she felt almost ashamed to 
think what a one-sided thing it would be. From the 
depths of her heart she respected him. Would that in 
time grow into a calm semblance of love? And if it did, 
would she be satisfied? and would he? 

She sat down one day in her mother’s lap and put her 
head on the shoulder that had sustained her in her child- 
ish trials. 

'' Momsie, you are the only one that is n’t trying to get 
rid of me. What would you do?” 

Mrs. Trevilian held her close. 

'' Follow your own heart, my child. You may be sure 
that will never take you wrong.” 

Virginia had a letter one day from Sallie, who was still 
in Kentucky, telling about Gordon’s being stationed near 
them and their seeing so much of him. At the close of the 
letter she wrote: 

Virge, what did you do to Gordon ? He won’t tell 
me, but I know you did something. He has been very at- 
tentive to Mary Matterson, who is quite a belle. Every- 
body thinks they are engaged, but I ’m sure I don’t 
know.” 

Virginia put on her prettiest dress that evening when 
Dr. Mayo came. He never saw her brighter or more 
beautiful. There was a deferential gentleness in his man- 
25 


386 


ORDER NO. 11 


ner to her that touched her heart to-night as it had never 
done before. Under all her gaiety that heart was a little 
sore. A wound cannot be jarred too rudely when the 
bandage is just taken off. 

The very night before her probation ended Virginia 
and Miss Nannie were out walking. High Street was 
abloom with roses and syringas and all the rest. They 
were not talking much. Miss Nannie had said weeks 
ago all she had to say. But the time for the verdict was 
at hand and Virginia was summing up the arguments. 
It was such a comfort to be with Aunt Nan and not have 
to talk. 

They passed an old-fashioned, double brick house with 
sharp dormers in front. Over the porch was a sweet- 
scented honeysuckle. The air was heavy with its per- 
fume. 

There is something about an odor more than anything 
in the world that brings back old memories. For one 
brief instant, Virginia closed her eyes. The lights were 
gleaming from open casements, the music of familiar 
voices reached her ear, and the soft tread of shuffling feet ; 
the promenaders paced back and forth ; and under the 
honeysuckle a tall man held a girl's beating heart to his. 

She drew a quivering breath. 

‘‘ I can't do it, Aunt Nan ! " she said. 


CHAPTER XLIV 


WITHOUT FEAI? AND WITHOUT REPROACH 

W AS it the honeysuckle ? or was it the force of a great 
heart, hundreds of miles away, that held and drew 
her periodically to itself, as the moon holds and draws — 
in spite of all— the restless, heaving, turbulent ocean? 

That heart, though sorely wounded, was unchanged. 
This was the love of a lifetime to Gordon Lay ; in it was 
what the author of '' Tess ’’ calls '' a substratum of ever- 
lastingness.'' 

And yet in a heart where burns a steady flame of love 
that nothing can put out, sometimes smolders also a slow 
fire of resentment that is as hard to quench. The very 
traits that make the one possible, make the other almost 
inevitable. 

Gordon felt, not unnaturally, that he had been hardly 
used. To the astonished bewilderment of that first mo- 
ment when his letters had dropped unopened into his 
hands had succeeded a period of searching self-examina- 
tion. What had he done? He knew Virginia too v/ell to 
believe that this was a girl's whim— she was not un- 
reasonable-something had shaken her soul to its depths 
to lead her to do a thing like this. But what was it? 
And how could he ever find out ? In those letters was the 
explanation of his long silence, of his unprecedented 
and, perhaps, unwarrantable action in taking charge of 
Colonel Trevilian's affairs — of everything, in short. But 
if these explanations did not reach the eyes for which they 
were intended, how could he ever right himself in their 

387 


388 


ORDER NO. 11 


sight? And how could he make them reach those eyes? 
The more he thought of it the more dazed he felt, and the 
more perplexed as to the means of extrication. 

Then a slow anger rose within him. A common crimi- 
nal was allowed a trial,— and with those letters that would 
have explained everything thrown contemptuously back 
at him, he felt that he had been denied a trial— he had 
been condemned unheard. 

He really was more troubled over the return of Colo- 
nel Trevilian’s letter than Virginia’s. It might possibly 
be personal pique on her part,— though he hardly be- 
lieved so,— but it would not be on the Colonel’s. It must 
be that he had heard of his action in taking Lois to the 
asylum and resented it. Perhaps the superintendent had 
learned where Colonel Trevilian was and communicated 
with him, telling him of his (Gordon’s) proposition to 
have her entered under the name of Trevilian, and he had 
felt it to be an unpardonable liberty with his name. Per- 
haps they resented his taking Lois there, or his having 
anything to do with it. But— he told himself helplessly 
— something had to be done, and there was nobody else 
to do it. They ought to know that his motives were right, 
whether his judgment was or not. 

He began to feel sure that he had come upon the true 
solution. Colonel Trevilian repudiated this marriage 
and resented his action in the matter, and Virginia stood 
with him. 

Then pride and a sense of injury came to complicate 
matters. If this was the way they felt, he had overesti- 
mated the family— that was all ! 

His regiment was ordered to Kentucky after a while, 
and he talked it all over with his mother, — asking spe- 
cially that Sallie should not be told anything about it. 
He did not want to be mixed up in it any more than he 


WITHOUT FEAR 


389 


was already, he said, and Sallie would be sure to let fall 
something about it to Virginia. And in the wisdom of 
this Mrs. Lay concurred,— so the last hope of straight- 
ening things out was cut off. 

Mrs. Lay took a very common-sense view of Gordon’s 
obligation in the matter,— influenced perhaps by mother- 
love. 

'' My son,” she said, I don’t think you ought to bur- 
den yourself in any such way. If Colonel Trevilian re- 
pudiates this marriage, or is not able to maintain her, Lois 
should be put on the county.” 

'' Mother,” he replied quietly, '' that was settled months 
ago. While I live, Beverly Trevilian’s wife will never 
become a public charge.” 

But, Gordon, there is certainly some misunderstand- 
ing. I would n’t give it up this way— and when you 
write again—” 

I shall not write again,” he said. 

It was during this time in Kentucky that he met Mary 
Matterson, of whom Sallie afterward wrote to Virginia. 
He did not go much into society, but Mary Matterson was 
a sweet, attractive girl, and he went often to her house. 
She was a belle, as Sallie had said ; but there was some- 
thing about this reserved, quiet man that interested her 
more than any of her gay companions. And he found 
her companionship very grateful at this time. 

Word came to them at last that the news of Beverly’s 
death had reached the Trevilians — came in a heart-broken 
letter from Virginia to Sallie, which she put into Gor- 
don’s hands. 

'' Gordon,” she cried through her tears, “ what was it 
came between you and Virge? . . . Write to her, what- 
ever it was. . . . She needs comfort now.” 

He read the letter through and handed it back to her. 


390 


ORDER NO. 11 


But he did not answer, and he did not write. In all the 
letters of sympathy that passed there was never a men- 
tion of the marriage. 

One day Gordon had a letter from Dr. Cheever. It 
was written with a longing for a friend’s sympathy, and 
perhaps, too, with the unformulated thought that Gordon 
would understand. He told him in the letter what she 
had said— the assurance he had waited for before he had 
spoken— “ There is nothing whatever between us.” 

Gordon sat staring into vacancy a long time after he 
read this letter. It seemed to make it all so horribly defi- 
nite. . . . This is a mixed-up world. He did not know 
that her words were only an echo of his own, that had 
fallen on her heart like clods on a coffin. 

After a while his eyes fell on another letter lying on 
his table. He took it up and looked at it. He knew what 
it was. It seemed almost like the satire of fate that it 
should have come at this moment when he was looking 
out over the desolation of his life. 

It was a bill for Lois Chandler’s board and medical at- 
tendance, rendered quarterly. With it was a brief state- 
ment of her condition, which the superintendent said was 
unchanged. Gordon had deposited a sum of money in the 
Fulton bank — in case of emergency. He wrote out a 
check for the amount, added a formal line with it, and 
addressed it mechanically. He was thinking of the day 
he stood under the willow tree with Beverly Trevilian’s 
letter in his hand. 

“ The covenant was with Jonathan and his house,” he 
said, unaware that he had spoken. . . . His mother was 
well provided for— she would never leave his sister now'; 
and— wifeless and childless as he felt at this moment 
he should always be — what better use could he make of 
his broken life than to give it to the care of his dead 
friend’s wife and child? 


WITHOUT FEAR 


391 


“ I can, at any rate, be faithful,’’ he thought ; but it was 
a wintry smile that flitted over his face, for a principle is 
a bloodless thing, and human love so warm and palpi- 
tating ! 

And so it stood between these two until the hour of 
reckoning came. 


CHAPTER XLV 


A DAY IN JUNE 

I T was a royal day in June. The skies were bluer, the 
grass more green, the very roses fuller and sweeter 
than they had been for four long years,— for it was a 
June of peace. The birds were holding a carnival over it, 
and all nature sang in the chorus. These four years had 
been a night of mad delirium,— but the dawn had come. 
Men woke with spent bodies and racked nerves, it is true, 
but with vision clearer than it had been for many a day. 
And as the morning brightened, a thrill of life began 
stirring in their veins. 

When the end came with Appomattox, Colonel Tre- 
vilian accepted it with stoical philosophy. 

We have ‘ fought a good fight,' " he said to Dr. Mayo, 
who was a Union man ; we ^ have kept the faith ' de- 
livered to us by our fathers, but the logic of events is 
against us, and we yield to it." 

There was something in the attitude of the conquered 
that could not but appeal to the conqueror. They had 
staked all and lost, but they did not whine. There are 
few things in history braver or more pathetic than the 
way in which the Southern people took up life again 
when the war was over. They were impoverished and 
decimated; their lands were laid waste; their pleasant 
places destroyed by fire ; thorns and briers sprang up 
where the fruitful field had been ; the fallow ground cried 
out for the husbandman, and the strong man was laid 
low ; those that remained were unused to labor, and their 


392 


A DAY IN JUNE 


393 


social structure was in ruins around them. But men 
and women bent their backs to the burden and did not 
complain. 

It is not strange, perhaps, that here and there one 
should see occasional souls who, in the midst of the fiery 
furnace that followed war, should still have been un- 
reconstructed.'’ It is always easier for the victor to forget 
than for the vanquished, and there are some wounds that 
need time's healing touch. 

All over the country, that June, people were taking up 
the tangled threads of life and trying to straighten them 
out. They seemed hopelessly twisted sometimes. 

On the border the land at least was left, and Jackson 
County land— with youth and hope— is a fortune to any 
possessor. But too often, alas ! youth was gone, and hope 
—ah, well, happily hope is a perennial! It goes down 
before the sharp frosts of winter, but its tender leaves 
rear themselves bravely again when the first sunny days 
come; there always seems to be some warmth where its 
roots are hidden. 

It seemed to Colonel Trevilian, when the tidings of 
Beverly's end reached him, that youth and hope had been 
cut down together, but by the time this June of peace 
had come he remembered that Virginia was left. And 
with the thrilling of life in nature came the throbbing of 
the old desires for home and the mastery of the earth. 

Virginia and her father had set June first for their re- 
turn to spy out the land and see what could be done 
toward building up the waste places. They had talked 
much about it. Even Sallie, away off in Kentucky, knew 
of that date and all it portended. She was as eager to get 
back as they, but she must wait a while— till Ike SWam- 
scott could get a start and come on for her. The war did 
not blast quite all hopes. Those having their roots in 
hearts that still beat sprang up again. 


394 


ORDER NO. 11 


Colonel Trevilian and Virginia stood on the platform 
of a Missouri Pacific station. A friend’s buggy was to 
convey them to Grand Prairie, and the friend stood urg- 
ing his hospitality upon them. They did not quite have 
all things in common as in apostolic times, but the re- 
turning exiles had a helping hand extended from every 
side. A family camping for the night by the roadside in 
’65 sent to a neighboring farm-house one morning for 
milk. The messenger came back with pans of hot biscuits 
and a generous dish of ham and eggs. The housewife 
had given up her own breakfast and was cheerfully cook- 
ing another. 

I have just got back myself,” was the message she 
sent, and I know how it is ! ” 

The two were in the buggy, ready for the start, when a 
3^oung man, tall and erect, rode up on an iron-gray. His 
face was bronzed from exposure, but it was a clean face, 
well chiseled. They were not eyes that need fall before 
the most searching gaze. They did not now. They bent 
fearlessly upon the young woman in the buggy, whose 
color came and went. 

'' Why, it ’s Gordon Lay ! ” exclaimed Colonel Trevilian, 
heartily, extending his hand. '' Well met, my boy, well 
met ! It is a lucky chance that brings us together here ! ” 
It is lucky indeed for me,” said Gordon, shaking 
hands cordially with both. He emphasized, the pro- 
noun rather more than the adjective, which was only 
honest, seeing that he had been hanging around the sta- 
tion for the last twenty-four hours. Sallie had written 
him that they would be there on the first, but he had 
decided to take no chances of premature arrival. He 
seemed as much surprised, however, as they were at the 
meeting. 

He was going out to the old place, he said, to look it 
over and see what could be done with it. No,— in answer 


395 


A DAY IN JUNE 

to the Coloners question,— he hardly thought his mother 
would ever want to come back. The associations were 
painful, and she would be happier, he thought, with his 
sister. He did not say what he was going to do with the 
place. 

He rode along by the side of the buggy, first on one 
side, and then on the other. But he talked almost always 
to the Colonel. The garrulity of years is a convenience 
sometimes, and a safeguard. 

The friend’s bays trotted briskly along the smooth, level 
prairie road. Colonel Trevilian felt his spirits rising as 
he looked across the great stretch. Not even the spectral 
chimneys outlined here and there against the sky could 
keep down the joy that rose in his heart at the sight of 
the old familiar landmarks. He was going home— and 
he had been so homesick for his farm! It was good to 
hear the bob-whites once more! 

“ Gordon,” he said, that ’s a fine riding-horse you 
have there. I have been noticing his gaits. That is n’t 
the one you were riding the day you saved Virginia, is 
it?” 

“ Yes, sir ; it ’s the same one.” Virginia blushed, and 
Gordon bent over the horse’s neck to pat him. He ’s 
done me good service, sir. He carried me all through 
the war. We ’ve seen some hard times together, Damon 
and I. He fairly stands on his hind heels when he hears 
a bugle or a drum.” 

He ’s a fine animal,” repeated the Colonel, admiringly. 

I hardly know how it would seem to be in the stirrups 
again.” 

''Would you like to try it, sir?” Gordon asked 
eagerly. " I ’ll change with you if you ’d like.” 

Virginia sat in quiescence. Her permission to this 
arrangement had not been asked. Apparently, she was 
not considered in it. 


396 


ORDER NO. 11 


When the change was made, the Colonel rode off 
briskly, the blood coursing in his veins faster than it had 
done for years. It was not running slowly in Gordon’s 
veins, if heart-beats were any indication. He was afraid 
Virginia would see them. 

'' Yes,” he repeated ; ‘‘ Damon has done me good ser- 
vice.” In his heart he was thinking, '' And never better 
than just now.” 

His manner put her instantly at ease. The old familiar 
boy-and-girl footing was established between them with- 
out a word. He talked to her about her mother, her 
school, her life in Jefferson, Sallie, and the rest of the 
boys and girls, — everything except the one thing nearest 
his heart. She said to herself, He has forgotten. I am 
so glad ! ” — and, by a strange contrariety of woman na- 
ture, said it with an inward sob imperceptible to the ears 
of sense. 

They were talking at last of Beverly’s death. He lis- 
tened for some word that would tell him she knew of the 
marriage, but none came. It was all about brother,” 
and the pity of it. Nothing about '' brother’s wife,” and 
the pity of that. He did not want to enter upon that story, 
he felt a strong shrinking from it, for he knew it would 
hurt her. But they were nearing home now. He could 
not let her drop into that tragedy wholly unprepared. 

Virginia,” he said, reining the horses in to a walk. 
They had passed Colonel Trevilian, who had stopped to 
talk with an acquaintance on the road. '' How much do 
you know about Beverly ? What have you heard ? ” 

It was painfully abrupt. He knew it, but he did not 
know how to soften it. 

She looked at him uncomprehendingly. 

“ How much do I know ? ” she repeated. '' Why, we 
don’t know anything much of the details. Mr. Foree 
heard Mammy tell about his death when she was at the 


A DAY IN JUNE 


397 


provost's in Independence once. He said she asked some 
of them to send us word, and he did as soon as he found 
out where we were. But that was not till a long time 
afterward. You know, Mammy and Uncle Reuben can't 
write, and there was hardly anybody left that they could 
get to write for them." 

He was listening intently. Evidently, she did not 
know. 

‘‘ Why did you ask ? " she asked suddenly. 

Virge," he said very gently, dropping into the old 
name unconsciously, are you strong enough and brave 
enough to bear up under something I have to tell you ? " 

She looked at him with dilating eyes. What is it ? 
Tell me quickly ! " 

‘‘ Beverly was married." 

‘^Married! Brother? No!" 

He was married." 

‘‘ To whom? " 

To Lois Chandler." 

Lois Chandler! It seemed to the girl that the blood 
was leaving even her heart. The hand clutched her 
throat frightfully. 

“ Where is Lois Chandler ? " she asked. 

“ In the asylum at Fulton. It is a sad story. The night 
Beverly was buried his child was born. The mother has 
been insane ever since." 

^ Beverly's child ! She raised her hand to her throat and 
pulled at her collar. It did seem as if she would suffocate. 

Who took her to the asylum? " she asked in a tense 
voice. 

I did. There was no one else to do it, and I felt that 
she must have treatment. I know it seems almost unjus- 
tifiable, but this is my warrant for doing it." 

He took Beverly's letter from his pocket and put it 
into her hands. She read it through twice. 


398 


ORDER NO. 11 


‘‘ Why were we not |:old of this before ? she asked as 
she gave it back to him. Her voice was strained and un- 
natural. He felt that he was being arraigned. 

He folded it up and put it away before he answered. 
When he did, his voice was absolutely without trace of 
emotion. 

I wrote your father about it and inclosed a letter that 
Beverly had left for him. ... It was returned to me."' 

A piece of paper that had caught in the wheel went 
around again and again and again. She watched for its 
revolutions with fascinated eyes that were not consciously 
looking at it. In her brain was throbbing tumultuously 
the thought : '' This is the man I doubted ! And deep 
down in her heart Jdiere was running an undercurrent 
from Sallie’s letter : '' Everybody thinks they are . . . 
I ’m sure I don't know." 

Virginia," he said, '' I hope I have not done wrong 
to tell you this. I felt that you must know it first, for 
your father's sake." 

She looked up at him with a face whose white wretch- 
edness haunted him for days. He longed to take her in 
his arms and comfort her, but he did not so much as 
touch her hand. 

‘‘ No 1 " she said, with slow emphasis that he did 
not fathom then. No ! You have done nothing 
wrong. Nothing! You have been all that is good and 
true ! " 

He raised his hand deprecatingly. I could not have 
done less. Beverly left her to me. And — I loved him like 
a brother."' 

They could hear Damon's hoof-beats behind them. 
The Colonel would soon be there. 

Gordon," she said hastily, '' where is the child ? Did 
it live ? " 

“ Yes. Mammy has it. He is a beautiful boy, Vir- 


A DAY IN JUNE 399 

ginia. We will see him in a few minutes. He is Bev- 
erly's image.'" 

I must tell father," she gasped. The shock would 
be too much for him. Give me the letter." 

He slipped it into her hand and reined up his horses. 

“ Now, Colonel," he said cheerfully, '' if you will 
change, I will ride on ahead and tell Mammy you are 
coming." 

As the Colonel was dismounting, Gordon bent over 
Virginia. You 've been a brave girl ! " he whispered. 
“ Be brave still 1 " The tenderness of his voice thrilled 
her. 

Under the willow Gordon finished the story. It was 
hard for the proud-spirited old man to accept it. '' And 
he a Trevilian!" he said. 

He died as a Trevilian should, sir," Gordon answered 
firmly. He came to her in her hour of need. He was 
faithful unto death." 

Mammy was coming across the garden with a white- 
robed figure in her arms. Virginia was beside her. They 
had kept the child out of sight purposely until now. 
'' Give him time," Gordon had said. 

The two women stood beside them, without a word. 
Colonel Trevilian looked up and started, — he was so like 
Beverly ! But he did not reach out his arms. He 
could not bring himself to that yet. 

Honey," said Mammy, pointing to the Colonel, who 
is dat ? " 

My — dan'pa," lisped the child. 

Tell grandpa who you is." 

LiT — Bev'ly," he said, stumbling a little over the 
name, but triumphant at last. 

“ Whose little Beverly is you, honey ? " asked Mammy, 
the tears rolling down her cheeks. 


400 


ORDER NO. 11 


Dan ’pa’s li’l’— Bev’ly,” replied the baby, with the 
slow, cautious speech of a child learning to talk. He 
had long been tutored for this hour. 

Is you hyeah dat, Marse William? Gord done give 
you another chile ! ” 

Colonel Trevilian sat by his son’s grave, one hand cov- 
ering his face, which worked convulsively. Mammy put 
the child on his feet, and he went fearlessly to his grand- 
father. With his baby fingers he pulled at the hand. 
Mammy often played with him thus. 

Don’t c’y ! ” he said, tugging at the fingers. “ Here ’s 
— li’l’ Bev’ly! Is you my dan’pa?” 

The old man strained him to his breast. 

“ Yes 1 ” he said brokenly. God forgive me ! yes ! ” 


CHAPTER XLVI 


THE dove's call 

W ITHIN the next few days the wheels of life be- 
gan to revolve on Grand Prairie, slowly and with 
some jerks, for a good many cogs were missing and the 
bearings had not been oiled for a long time, but with mo- 
tion enough to show that some day, when the gearing was 
in order, it would go again. 

Colonel Trevilian and Uncle Reuben planned together 
for the fields, — Mammy and Virginia for the housing of 
them all. Gordon, on his own place, was busy battling 
with the horse-weeds that had grown up around the house 
like a thicket of underbrush. They were arduous days of 
making bricks without straw ; but, for all that, they were 
not without their compensation. A community of in- 
terests (and of privations as well) brings us close to 
one another. 

As evening drew on, Gordon would come back to Kes- 
wick, as they still called the ruins, and he and the Colonel 
and Virginia would sit on the stone steps that had once 
led up to the porch, and lean against the pillars where th^’^ 
queen of the prairie " was trying its best to hide the 
scars of war and the '' Baltimore belle " hung heavy with 
its seven-fold clusters. Roses can do such a mighty work 
in brightening the face of desolation. 

And then, when the Colonel got sleepy and went off to 
the loom-house, there were always several hours of moon- 
light left, and Gordon leaned against his pillar beside the 
“ queen of the prairie," and Virginia against hers under 
26 


401 


402 


ORDER NO. 11 


the '' Baltimore belle/' and it seemed very easy and natu- 
ral to fall into the old ways of friendly talk. But it was 
never anything more. Between them always was the 
length of the step and a great gulf fixed. In Virginia's 
heart was still reverberating, Everybody says they are. 
. . . I am sure I don't know," and in his was the ever 
recurring question which was never answered—'' Why? " 

In all these days he had not asked her one word as to 
why his letter had been returned. If he had meant to 
punish her, he could have devised no more stinging way. 
If he would only ask her about it ! she would think. But 
he was too proud to ask. What she had done had been 
unprovoked; what she might do would be unsolicited. 
And of course her lips were sealed. 

She had never asked him about the Kentucky girl, 
though it had trembled on her lips a hundred times. She 
had talked around it and given him every opportunity to 
tell her, but he never had taken her into his confidence. 
Again and again she had said to herself, " I will ask him 
about it sometime, just in a friendly way— we are friends, 
if nothing more " ; but whenever she started to do it the 
hand always clutched her throat and she could not get 
the words out. It was all she could do to breathe when 
that hand had her. 

He asked her one day to drive over to his home with 
him,— there was something he wanted a woman's taste 
about. 

Colonel Trevilian was going back the next day, but it 
had been decided to leave Virginia here with Mammy 
and Uncle Reuben to get the school-house in readiness 
for the home-coming. That was to be the shelter for 
the present. Sometime, perhaps, Keswick might be re- 
built, but not now. There was fencing to be made, and 
stock to buy, and plows and harrows and reapers and 
mowers and corn-planters and wagons to be supplied be- 


THE DOVFS CALL 


403 


fore the house could be thought of. In the meantime, 
whitewash was cheap. Many a Jackson County farmer 
who had lived in luxury before the war was glad now of 
a shelter and a bucket of whitewash. They used it freely 
— even on the tree trunks. 

Gordon Lay had had a little talk with Colonel Trevilian 
the day before. He had asked him some plain questions. 
There were some things he felt that he had to understand. 
Things could not go on this way forever. 

It was the first time Virginia had been over to his 
home. At Keswick the occupancy of the two old negroes 
had kept the place in partial order, but at Dr. Lay’s there 
was nothing left but the house and the trees. Even the 
grass was rooted up by swine, and the weeds stood high 
as a man’s head around the house. They had to bend 
them aside to reach the door. 

They went through the house together. It was forlorn 
enough, but — it could be made into a home, Virginia was 
thinking with a dull aching at her heart. It was the Ken- 
tucky girl that would do it. 

They went out after a while into the yard, down in the 
corner where the locusts were and the swine had not 
plowed. A seat, scarred like Whittier’s desk with the 

jackknife’s carved initials,” had been placed years be- 
fore between two trees. V. T.” was on it, and B. C. 
T.,” and '' Sallie,” and '' G. L.,” in all varieties of type. 
They sat down on this seat and looked back at the house. 

'' It is rather a gloomy outlook,” he said, cutting a lo- 
cust sprout and slowly snipping the leaves away. “ I am 
afraid it will never be anything more than a house again.” 

It will,” she answered quickly. '' She ’ll make it into 
a home for you. Sallie told me, Gordon. I was in hopes 
you would confide in me yourself, but — it ’s all right. 
And— I— want to say that I am very glad for you.” 

She hurried a little, for she felt the hand creeping 


404 ORDER NO. 11 

toward her throat, and she would not have broken down 
for a kingdom. 

Thank you,” he said gravely. How much did Sal- 
lie tell you ? ” 

“ Only her name and that she was a great belle.” 

Ah ! And do you believe, Virginia, that she would 
be willing to go with me into this desolate place ? ” 

It will not be desolate to her when you are here,” she 
said gaily. Her heart was bleeding, but she would not 
let him see the drops. She could bind it up at her leisure. 

He raised his hat with grave courtesy. 

'‘You are kind to say so. And Sallie !— well, Sallie's 
kindness I shall never forget ! ” 

She looked at him with surprised eyes. 

" I am sure I can only conjecture as to Sallie’s motives,” 
he continued. " Doubtless, when we get down to them 
they will prove truer than her facts. They certainly 
could not be more false.” (In reality, Sallie's thought in 
writing that news had been, " I ’ll just make Miss Vir- 
ginia see how it feels!”) "No, — there is only one wo- 
man in all the world, Virginia, that could make a home 
for me here or anywhere, and — I Ve lost her.” 

Her broad-brimmed hat had fallen back, leaving her 
face bare to his gaze, and he was looking steadily at her. 
A crimson tide spread over neck and cheek and brow 
and then receded. Her eyes were on the ground. 

" I don’t know what I did,” he said gently. It was his 
gentleness that broke her heart. " But I know she was 
not the girl to do what she did without a reason. Some- 
time, perhaps, I shall know. Sometime, perhaps, she will 
tell me. Until then I can wait.” 

There was a moment of painful silence. It was stirred, 
not broken— for a dove’s moan seems the very embodi- 
ment of solitude — by a plaintive note down in the pasture, 
— the sweetest, mournfulest cry in all bird-lore. 


THE DOVFS CALL 


405 


Poor fellow ! ’’ he said. He ’s lost his mate. Lis- 
ten ! he ^s calling for her.’^ 

She flashed a quick smile of recollection at him through 
her tears. It was what they used to say as children. 

Just then there came from far away an answering call 
—so faint, so low it could hardly be heard, but thrilling 
with the same sad burden of love and longing. 

She put her hand out toward him with a quick gesture. 
Her chin quivered a little— she could not quite hold her 
voice steady, but she met his look bravely. 

“ Perhaps— they Ve just— got separated,’’ she said 
softly. Listen ! She ’s calling for him, too ! Can you 
hear?” 

It was a faint cry, but he heard. 


CHAPTER XLVII 


A chapter of beginnings and endings 

O NE by one the lights began to twinkle over Grand 
Prairie,— in the cabins sometimes, or in little 
shanties near where the chimneys stood, — sometimes in 
the shell of the house that was. Then pioneer life began 
again, — and the people were very close to one another in 
their poverty. The story of that coming back is almost 
as touching in its way as the tragical one of their depor- 
tation two years before. There is something very pathetic 
about the beginnings of middle life or old age. 

But there is one beautiful trait in human nature. As 
time rolls on, we forget the disagreeable and hard things 
of life and remember the pleasant and humorous ones. 
We cannot help it. Our souls are fashioned that way. 
He who made them knew that the burden of all our sor- 
rows would be intolerable. And so it is that when a com- 
pany of those exiles get together now, they always speak 
of the ridiculous figure they cut, and the funny incidents 
of the journey, and the helping hands that were held out 
to them on their return, and not of the woes of it all. 
These make only the shadows of the picture that serve to 
bring out the high lights, — and distance has thrown such 
a haze over it, and the whole has been so softened by time, 
that it seems now more a dramatic incident in a play than 
the sharp reality it was forty years ago. 

In those trying days of beginning again they labored 
together to build up the walls, and, as in the days of Ne- 

406 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 407 

hemiah, every man repaired over against his own 
house. 

The similitude to the exiled Jews did not end here, for 
the years following peace were far from peaceful years 
along the border. It might almost have been said of 
them as of the house of Judah : They which builded 
on the wall, and they that bare burdens, . . . every one 
with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the 
other hand held a weapon.’’ 

The passions of men cannot be wrought up to fever 
heat through years of marauding and violence and blood- 
shed to be calmed instantaneously by executive decree. 
War began early for the border,— full half a decade be- 
fore the deluge came, — and it did not end with the procla- 
mation of peace. For years there were occasional wild 
bursts of outlawry that could be traced to Quantrell’s 
band. The James boys got their start then. 

On the other side of the line were ruffians who had 
been trained in the same school. That they should imme- 
diately settle down into good and reputable citizens waa 
almost too much to expect of frail human nature. A 
taste of pillage is to the human tiger as a taste of blood 
to his brother in the jungle. It whets his appetite for 
more. So it is hardly to be wondered at that along the 
harried border peace should have been a work ” rather 
than an '' act,” as the catechism has it. 

A few of the old families never returned, but their 
places were taken in time by enterprising farmers who, 
during the war, had seen this garden of the Lord,” and 
returned to occupy it. But most of them came back 
sooner or later, for there is a drawing force about the 
prairie as about the mountains or the sea, to those who 
have lived upon it, which gets into the blood and brings 
one back to it. 

Sometimes it was only the young people that came. 


4o8 


ORDER NO. 11 


as in the case of the Lays; and sometimes, alas! it was 
only the older- ones that v/ere left to come. 

Miss Tiny and Miss Tony never returned. Before 
peace came they had both had free transportation to 
greener fields than are to be found in Jackson County or 
even in their own loved Virginia. True, it was ''beyond 
the swelling flood,’' but they had been through such deep 
waters before that when they came to the great river it 
seemed but a friendly stream which would give them pas- 
sage to the " land of pure delight.” 

Sallie came back one day with Ike Swamscott and her 
mother, and it seemed to Mrs. Trevilian and Mrs. Dev- 
ereau that they were beginning life over again in their 
daughters. There is something a little sad in seeing one 
generation step aside for another, but it is nature’s law. 
And, perhaps, after all, it is the easiest way for us to un- 
derstand how " immortality is brought to life,” for so it 
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world 
without end. 

In a quiet ward of the asylum at Fulton a fair-haired 
woman with childish blue eyes and a peach-blossom com- 
plexion walks up and down the long hall. Pressed to her 
breast is a formless child whose garments are fashioned 
with care, but never need shortening. Among those with- 
ered ones whose springs of intelligence have been tapped 
and the joy-giving waters taken thence, she looks 
strangely out of place. Even the dull eyes look after her 
and light up as she passes. She is like a gleam of sun- 
light in a place of shadows. But it is sunlight falling on 
ice. It is beautiful, but it does not vivify. 

The doctor is passing through. She comes to him and 
says wistfully, as she has said with each revolving sun : 

"Will Beverly come to-day?” 

" Not to-day,” the doctor tells her gently,—" to-mor- 
row, perhaps.” 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 409 

Oh ! to-morrow. Well, I can wait one more day, 
Doctor, with a pathetic little attempt at courage. And 
it is to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow ! And 
he for whom she waits sleeps peacefully under the willow. 
Ah ! God sometimes mercifully takes from us memory and 
leaves us hope! 

A sad case ! ’’ the doctor says as they pass on. One 
of the wrecks of war! She saw her father shot down, 
and buried her husband with her own hands at a time 
when she needed tenderest care. Yes, quite hopeless, I 
think. But the doll-baby is a comfort to her.’’ 

And if the semblance of humanity can so feed the 
springs of maternal love which bubbled up for one brief 
space and thus took hold upon eternity, what could not 
be done by a sentient soul? 

As water in a thirsty land, so is the love of a child to 
parched and withering lives. Upon the blighted hopes, 
the blasted plans, the purposes broken off, little Beverly 
laid a baby’s touch, and, lo ! the barren wastes were cov- 
ered with budding flowers and spring verdure. 

The child crept into his grandsire’s heart and brought 
with him a throbbing of the old ambitions. This was 
Beverly come back to him. His name had not died out. 
Life was not quite all gone yet. Could Keswick ever be 
restored for his grandson? It was worth striving for. 

The boy never knew he was motherless. Three women 
took him to maternal hearts, — one for love of the son 
who slept, one in place of the child that had never been, 
and one because he had lain first of all on her faithful 
breast. Each gave him love in unstinted measure. And 
so, by a beautiful compensation that we do sometimes see 
in life, there was made up to him a loss that he never 
realized. 

Relations were established with Miss Abby Cheever in 
the strangest possible manner, — one that could leave no 


410 


ORDER NO. 11 


doubt in their minds about the kindliness of her feeling 
for them, or her sense of justice. 

She had been living in Lawrence since she left the 
prairie; she had gone unscathed through the massacre 
and still taught school, supplementing her earnings by 
giving music-lessons. One day she had a note from a 
lady in the outskirts of the town requesting her to call. 
She wished her daughter to begin taking lessons on the 
piano. 

Miss Abby went immediately. Pianos were a scarce 
article in Kansas then ; she often had to substitute a me- 
lodeon. And then the name interested her,— Tigerman 
was a peculiar name, she had never heard it except on 
Grand Prairie. 

When she entered Mrs. Tigerman’s parlor, into which 
she was ushered by her prospective pupil, a strange sense 
of familiarity stole over her. Where had she seen a Wil- 
ton carpet like this? and this Chickering piano? 

Over the mantel hung a portrait in oil of a stately, 
gray-haired gentleman. Miss Abby was standing before 
it when the lady of the house appeared. 

When she turned to meet her hostess, that lady had a 
vague feeling that she had seen her caller before — where, 
she could not tell. She did not associate her at all with 
the stranger in the Trevilian pew. Four years — and such 
years! — had left their imprint even upon Miss Abby, and 
then Mrs. Tigerman had never really met her face to face 
— which had been the head and front of Mrs. Trevilian’s 
offending. Even her name did not betray her identity. 
In Missouri, according to the custom of the country, she 
had always been called “ Miss Abby ’’—here she was 

Miss Cheever.” 

‘‘ I have just been admiring your picture,” Miss Abby 
said, after the salutations and the business negotiations 
were over. ‘‘ Is it a Copley ? ” 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 41 j 


Mrs. Tigerman looked at her with sudden suspicion . 
She did not know the Copleys, but she would take no 
chances. 

No/' she said shortly, '' it ain't. It 's a Tigerman.” 

When Miss Abby learned that the Trevilian family had 
returned to Jackson, she wrote a letter to the Colonel. 

'' I want to tell you,” she- said, that Virginia's piano 
and your father's portrait are in Lawrence. I am 
ashamed to tell it, for they were brought here by a 
United States soldier. But right is right ! If you will 
come to Lawrence with a search-warrant, I will tell you 
where they may be found.” 

So the old Chickering came back once more to Kes- 
wick, and Grandfather Trevilian smiled down upon the 
third and fourth generations of them that loved him. 

In one of the deep wooded ravines that turn into the 
Blue— a peaceful spot for such gruesome work — there 
was found one day at the close of the war a skeleton. 
The very clothes were rotted and dank, but in the breast 
pocket of the coat was found a paper that produced no 
little excitement on Grand Prairie. It was the marriage 
certificate of Beverly Trevilian and Lois Chandler, and 
was identified by the old preacher, who had returned, as 
the one he had written out for Beverly the night he was 
shot. It pointed strongly to the fact that this was his 
murderer. 

There was no certain proof as to who the man was, but 
the paper was found in a torn envelop which had on it 
the name E-m-m-o— the rest was gone. It was believed 
to be Emmons Baird. In the center of the frontal bone 
was a bullet-hole. The avenger who had sought him for 
nine long years had found him at last. 


CHAPTER XLVIII 


HER WEDDING DAY 



"^HEY were married, one day in October, out under 


JL the elm trees that were Keswick's glory. The 
sumacs had flung out their blood-red banner of defiance 
to the coming blasts, and every tree and shrub had on a 
wedding garment. The carpet on which they stood was 
like unto the field of the cloth of gold. 

There was not room for them anywhere else. The 
wedding feast was spread in the school-house, which was 
freshly whitewashed and gay with autumn boughs. 

I ain't gwineter have no po' folks doin's," Mammy 
had said. ‘‘ I gwineter have de stack cake, an' cook de 
peeg an’ all — a' ole Albemarle supper ! " They let her 
have her way, and the larder was ransacked. 

It was an ideal wedding, for there was nobody there 
but those who loved them, and the wedding gifts were 
conspicuously absent. But while there was no exhibition 
of cut glass and burnished silver, there was over in the 
new nest— which was the old nest made over— that which 
gleamed with loving-kindness and sparkled with affec- 
tion. There were buckets of lard and sacks of meal, and 
home-made rugs for the floors that must be bare for a 
while till the start was gained, and quilts that had been 
pieced from precious scraps and quilted for the occasion. 
Mr. Whalen's gift was a shote, and Mammy's the old 
Dominecker " and two of his plural wives. 

Nobody on Grand Prairie had anything of value to 
give now, but they all out of their destitution shared what 


412 


HER WEDDING DAY 


413 

they had. And so the beautiful custom that has been so 
debased came back to its primitive beauty. 

Only one handsome thing did they have. That was a 
case of beautiful spoons marked Virginia.’’ They came 
from Lawrence, but the case had on it the name of a 
Boston firm. With them came a note that Virginia read 
with the tears brimming her eyes as they did that day in 
the buggy. She handed it to her mother and bent over 
the gift. 

It is very appropriate,” said Miss Nannie, grimly, 
“ that Kansas should send silver to Missouri ! ” 

Virginia dashed away her tears indignantly. 

'‘Aunt Nan! you ought to be ashamed of yourself! 
You know he did n’t have anything to do with it 1 ” 

"I know it,” said Miss Nannie, coolly; "but there is 
poetic justice in it, notwithstanding.” 

But when she read the note, even she broke down. 
" They were for her home and Gordon’s,” it said, " from 
a lonely man whose life was deeper if not brighter for 
having known her, and who wished for her every joy that 
the love of a good man could bring to a woman.” 

" Virginia,” said Miss Nannie, brokenly, " I think— I 
am— a little ashamed.” That word " lonely ” had 
touched her. " He certainly is a gentleman, if there ever 
was one ! I cant see how he came to be born in Massa- 
chusetts 1 ” 

The guests were strangely assorted, as guests usually 
are at weddings, for then, if ever, we call the people we 
want. Not many of the families had come back to the 
old neighborhood, and not all of those who had were 
asked. Some whose names would have been on the list 
four years ago were not bidden to-day, and some were 
invited the very mention of whose names would have sent 
Miss Nannie off into hysterical laughter then. Those 


414 


ORDER NO. 11 


were crucial years. They revealed character as well as 
made it. 

Virginia went down to Tobe Taggart’s and asked Rene 
to come to her wedding. 

The girl shook her head. 

“ Miss Nannie told me you wanted me,” she said. She 
was evidently pleased that they did. '' But ma she lowed 
he would n’t want me to go.” He had been in the brush. 

I s’pose I ’ve got to think about that now.” 

“ Yes,” she continued, '' it ’s Hank. Him and me ’s 
layin’ off to git married after hog-killin’ time. Pa says he 
reckons it ’ll be ' root, hog, or die.’ But Hank ’s done 
surrendered now. He says he ’s goin’ to work. I reckon 
we ’ll git along.” 

I wish you ’d come, Rene,” said Virginia, as she 
started to go. ''We are not going to have anybody but 
those we love, but— you know you saved Gordon’s life. 
We have n’t forgotten that.” 

" Yes.” The girl spoke hesitatingly. It was a 
strange combination of circumstances. Hank, her ac- 
cepted lover, had been one of that bloodthirsty gang. 
" Yes, I reckon I saved him all right enough— and— ” 
a dull red spread over her face — " I knew I was savin’ 
him fur you.” 

With a sudden impulse Virginia put her arms around 
the girl and kissed her. 

" Good-by, Rene. I ’m sorry you won’t come.” And 
her tears were near to falling. 

Mammy had a conspicuous place in that bridal party. 
One of the beauties of an unconventional affair is that 
you can put people according to your love for them, not 
consulting rules of precedence nor even of color, unless 
you wish. Mammy stood with the family, as was her 
right. She certainly had established her claim, and Vir- 
ginia wished it so. 


HER WEDDING DAY 


415 

I want her to be where she can see,” she said. 

They will all understand.” 

Nobody objected, for, as Miss Nannie said : If any- 
body in the world is entitled to a high seat in this particu- 
lar synagogue, it certainly is Mammy ! ” 

She wore a bright plaid linsey,— the first she had had 
since the early years of the war. It was the gift of the 
bridegroom, who, having no best man ” or ushers to re- 
member, bestowed his gift on the '' best women,” as he 
said, though he acknowledged that on that basis her mis- 
tress ought perhaps to draw straws with her for it. 
Mammy’s dress rivaled the maples and the hickories for 
brilliancy, but it was toned down by her white apron and 
head-handkerchief, and by the little Beverly in spotless at- 
tire. Standing thus, she gave the last touch of color 
needed to complete a picture the like of which is fading 
now. 

Mr. Singleton got back in time to marry them, and Mrs. 
Singleton to help dress the wedding hams. Virginia felt 
that she would hardly be married by anybody else. And 
he prayed, as she had so often heard him at family pray- 
ers, that their feet might be delivered from falling and 
their eyes from tears.” 

Already they were beginning to build up the waste 
places and restore again the walls of their Jerusalem. 
They had nothing to begin on but undaunted faith and 
the Bible saved from the flames. When the jayhawkers 
burned the church, from some strange spasm of revei- 
ence or perhaps superstition, they took the Bible out and 
laid it on a stump outside the range of flame, and there it 
was found. 

The presbytery to which Hickory Grove church be- 
longed had met for the last time down in Lafayette 
County in the spring of ’62,— a meeting attended by old 
people, women, and children,” says one who was there. 


4i6 


ORDER NO. 11 


and full of sadness, charity, and devotion — a sort of 
spiritual sunset before a long, dark, bitter, and cruel night 
of three and a half years/’ 

Now the night was past and the day at hand, and the 
little band on Grand Prairie was gathering its forces to 
plant the blue banner again. 

The willow could be seen from where they stood under 
the elm, but Mrs. Trevilian turned resolutely from it. 
Mothers’ hearts are always tender at a time like this, and 
there must be no tears on Virginia’s wedding-day. Only 
as the heads were bent in prayer, and nobody could see, 
did she look at the swaying branches. Her arms were so 
empty now ! 

Mammy filled the gap. As the prayer ended, she 
turned to her mistress. “ Hyeah, Miss Bettie, you take 
dis chile. I got to go ! ” 

Mrs. Trevilian strained him to her breast. God had 
filled her empty arms ! 

Never was there a sweeter bridal. They were very fair 
to look upon— these two— he in his stalwart strength and 
soldierly bearing, and she in her beauty. Out on the 
prairies the bob-whites called each other to look, and 
from the wood-lot back of the house came a bridal cho- 
rus from feathered throats. The sunlight filtered down 
through the trees and fell upon them in a golden shower. 
Out beyond the spread of the branches, floating clouds 
cast their shadows on the meadow-grass just as they used 
to do, but the whole world was so bright to them to-day 
that they did not see. 

They stood with their backs to Keswick and its ruins. 
The smoke-stained pillars and all they stood for were be- 
hind them. Before them was the new home — the new life 
—and love. Age loves a retrospect, but Youth looks ever 
forward— and God be thanked! 


HER WEDDING DAY 


417 


And now— * 

The vows are said — 

The potent vows that hold the happiness 
Of these two souls, for weal or woe, till death 
Do part. 

The benediction falls,— and out 
Into the world they go, one flesh instead 
Of twain ; and in the heart of the young bride 
Is welling up the Jubilate,^’ tuned 
To human love ; and in the bridegroom’s eyes 
A look of tender strength and steadfastness 
That says, “ I will not fail thee, love,— lean hard ! ' 

And thus, hand in hand, heart to heart, and shoulder 
to shoulder,— for theirs will be no rose-strewn path, — 
they step over the threshold of the old life into the new. 


CHAPTER XLIX 


EPILOGUE 



HE Missouri Pacific, completed after all the war's 


JL delays from sunrise to sunset border of the great 
State, was bearing a train westward through old Jackson. 
There were many people journeying toward its ragged, 
unkempt metropolis in the early days of peace. Far- 
seeing eyes had discovered in those hills and hollows the 
site of the city that was to be. 

A gentleman was looking from the window as the train 
sped on through plain and forest, the undulating prairies 
broken here and there by clumps of. trees or threaded by 
willowed streams seeking the great Missouri. 

“ A beautiful country, sir," said the gentleman, turn- 
ing to a stranger beside him who had entered the car a 
few minutes before, — ''a marvelously beautiful country! 
But can you tell me what those tall monuments are that 
we see so frequently in pairs? They look almost like 
chimneys." 

'' Those are ‘ Jennison's Tombstones,' sir," his com- 
panion replied with a smile. 

‘ Jennison's Tombstones'? A remarkable name! 
What do they commemorate, may I ask ? " 

The undying infamy of the man who looted this 
country, sir." The speaker was Dr. Gordon Lay. His 
appearance and the quiet intensity of his tone commanded 
the traveler's attention. “ They are monuments to the 


418 


EPILOGUE 


419 

stupidity that sent Kansas soldiers to control the Mis- 
souri border.” 

The man turned toward him with interest. 

'' I should be glad to hear more of this,” he said. 

There— there is another ! Do you mean to tell me that 
all these are the remains of houses burned during the 
war? I supposed you did not see much of the real thing 
in Missouri.” 

When Gordon Lay’s recital was finished, the walnut 
trees of Independence were coming into view. 

He rose. “ I get off here. You go on to Kansas City, 
I believe.” 

“ Yes.” The stranger raised his hat courteously. '' I 
am glad to have met you, sir. Your story has been most 
interesting. Good-day.” 

As the train started on, a man sitting in front of the 
traveler turned. During the conversation he had had his 
hat pulled down over his face. 

It won’t do to believe all these old fire-eaters tell you 
about the war,” he observed significantly. '' They don’t 
know it ’s ended yet.” 

“ That gentleman had every appearance of being re- 
liable,” the traveler said, rather coldly. He was mentally 
contrasting the two. 

Yes, — but they are prejudiced. Now, he has told you 
things calculated to injure United States soldiers— com- 
missioned officers, some of them.” 

The traveler shrugged his shoulders. But if they are 
true—” 

‘‘ They are all prejudiced,” the man insisted. They 
are not reliable. I know all about it. This county was a 
hotbed of rebellion. There was not a measure resorted 
to that was not a military necessity. ... Yes, perhaps 
some few things were confiscated,— arms, and such things, 


420 


ORDER NO. 11 


—but it was a necessity of war. Soldiers have to forage, 
you know.” 

The traveler looked thoughtful. 

‘‘ I suppose there are always two sides,” he said. 
Still— he had the appearance of telling the truths 
What is your name, sir ? ” 

“ My name is Tigerman.” 






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